Flowers and spiders in spatial stimulus-response compatibility: does affective valence influence selection of task-sets or selection of responses?

Bound to a spider without its web: Task-type modulates the retrieval of affective information in subsequent responses

Action control theories assume that upon responding to a stimulus response and stimulus features are integrated into a short episodic memory trace; repeating any component spurs on retrieval, affecting subsequent performance. The resulting so-called "binding effects" are reliably observed in discrimination tasks. In contrast, in localization performance, these effects are absent and only inhibition of return (IOR) emerges - a location change benefit. Affective information has been found to modulate binding effects; yet a modulation of IOR has led to mixed results, with many finding no influence at all. In the current study, participants discriminated letters (Experiment 1) or localized dots (Experiment 2) on a touchpad in prime-probe sequences. During the prime display two images - one with fruits and one with a spider - appeared, one of which spatially congruent with the to-be-touched area. In the discrimination task, previously touching a spider compared to a fruit slowed down response repetitions. In contrast, the localization task only showed IOR. This suggests that task-irrelevant valence is integrated with the response and affects subsequent responses due to retrieval. However, this is not ubiquitous but depends on task type. The results shed further light on the impact of affective information on actions.

Emotions in motion: affective valence can influence compatibility effects with graspable objects

Previous studies showed that affective valence (positive, negative) influences Stimulus-Response Compatibility (SRC) effects elicited by both relevant and irrelevant spatial dimensions. We tested whether valence influences SRC effects when the irrelevant spatial dimension rather than being conveyed by the entire stimulus location is conveyed by the location of the stimulus' graspable part, i.e., the Handle-Response (H-R) compatibility effect. Participants saw objects with either a flower, a spider or nothing on their handle and categorized them as kitchen utensils or garage tools through button presses. In Experiment 1, a random presentation of valenced stimuli was used, whereas in Experiment 2 differently valenced stimuli were arranged in different blocks. Furthermore, participants in Experiment 2 could be spider-fearful or not. In Experiment 1, an H-R compatibility effect occurred for response latencies, regardless of whether stimuli presented a negative, positive or no element on their handle. In Experiment 2 the effect occurred only when a positive element was shown on the object's handle. In addition, spider-fearful individuals showed significantly slower responses when the element appearing on the object's handle had a negative valence. These results suggest that the SRC effect observed with pictures of graspable objects may be sensitive to the affective characteristics of stimuli and that approach/avoidance response tendencies may also depend on individual differences (being spider-fearful or not).

Generalized Approach/Avoidance Responses to Degraded Affective Stimuli: An Informational Account

Two studies tested whether affective stimuli presented auditorily spontaneously trigger approach/avoidance reactions toward neutral visual stimuli. Contrary to hypotheses, Experiment 1 revealed that when the target was present, participants responded faster after positive (vs. negative) stimuli, and faster to the absence of the target following negative (vs. positive) stimuli, whatever the response modality (i.e., approach/avoidance). Instructions were to approach/avoid stimuli depending on whether a target was presented or not presented. We proposed that affective stimuli were used in this study as information about the presence/absence of the target. In Experiment 2, we replicated the results of Experiment 1 when participants responded to the presence/absence of the target, whereas an approach/avoidance compatibility effect was observed when each response modality was associated with a target. These results indicate that affective stimuli influence approach/avoidance across perceptual modalities and suggest that the link between affective stimuli and behavioral tendencies could be mediated by informational value of affect.

Stimuli with a positive valence can facilitate cognitive control

In the process of interacting with people and objects, humans assign affective valence. By using an association-transfer paradigm, the current study investigated whether the emotion associated with a stimulus would have an impact on cognitive control outcomes. During the association phase of two experiments reported here, participants identified the emotion expressed by an actor's face as either positive (i.e., smiling) or negative (i.e., frowning). Half of the actors expressed positive emotions (MP) on 80% of trials, while the other half expressed negative emotions (MN) on 80% of trials. We tested the cognitive effect of these associations in two experiments. In the transfer phase of Experiment 1, the same actors from the association phase were shown with neutral expression during a gender Stroop task, requiring participants to identify the gender of the face while ignoring a gender word (congruent or incongruent) that was imposed upon the face. The Stroop effect was significant for the MN faces, but the effect disappeared for the MP faces. In the transfer phase of Experiment 2, the emotionless faces were presented in a task-switching paradigm, in which participants identified the age (i.e., old or young) or the gender depending on the task cue. The task switch cost was smaller (though significant) for the MP faces than for the MN faces. These results suggest that, relative to social stimuli associated with negative expressions, social stimuli associated with positive expressions can promote better cognitive control and inhibit distractor interference in goal-oriented behavior.

Interaction mechanism between location and sequence in letter cognition

A previous study used days as a sequence symbol to investigate the interaction mechanism between location and sequence in sequence symbol cognition; the study findings suggested that the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect and the Simon effect could not co-exist with the SNARC-like effect when processing sequence symbols. The previous study did not include the influence of the difficulty of identifying sequence symbols on the Simon effect in the investigation, so it is unclear whether the conclusion about processing sequence symbols with considerable identification difficulty can be extended to the processing of sequence symbols with less identification difficulty. Therefore, the present study explored letters that have a low level of identification difficulty to investigate the interaction mechanism between location and sequence in sequence symbol cognition. Participants were asked to classify a probe letter, which was randomly displayed on the left or right side of the screen, according to its location (Experiment 1), its sequence (Experiment 2) or its colour (Experiment 3). The results indicated that (1) only the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect and Simon effect were present in the letter location classification task and letter colour classification task, respectively. (2) The Simon effect co-existed with the SNARC-like effect, and these two effects interacted with each other in the letter sequence classification task. From these results, it can be concluded that the task determines whether the Simon effect and the SNARC-like effect can co-exist, with differences presented across sequence symbols.

Emotion-induced attentional bias: does it modulate the spatial Simon effect?

Schlaghecken, F., Blagrove, E., Mantantzis, K., Maylor, E. A., & Watson, D. G. [(2017). Look on the bright side: Positivity bias modulates interference effects in the Simon task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(6), 763-770] found larger spatial Simon effects for happy than sad faces. Unexpectedly, this enhancement was also observed for nonvalenced objects requiring the same response as happy faces. We examined whether the increase of the spatial Simon effect is location- or object-based. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants pressed a left/right key in response to a happy/sad face or a left-/right-pointing arrow. These stimuli appeared on the left/right side of fixation, with location being task-irrelevant. Consistent with Schlaghecken et al., the spatial Simon effect was numerically larger for happy than sad faces regardless of whether faces and arrows were presented in different blocks (Experiment 1) or intermixed within blocks (Experiment 2). However, the spatial Simon effect for arrows was not modulated by the faces' emotional valence. Similar findings were observed with pointing hands in Experiment 3. Our results imply that attentional bias is associated with specific objects (e.g. faces) not locations.

Influence of Number Location on the SNARC Effect: Evidence From the Processing of Rotated Traditional Chinese Numerical Words

Studies have widely captured the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect in the processing of various types of numbers in which small numbers are responded to faster with the left hand than with the right hand and larger numbers are responded to faster with the right hand than with the left hand. Although a few studies have explored Arabic numbers to further investigate the influence of number location on the SNARC effect, it remains unclear whether the influence of number location on the SNARC effect is moderated by numerical semantic processing difficulty and the task performed. This study explored traditional Chinese numerical words and rotated them to certain angles, which can increase numerical semantic processing difficulty, to further investigate the influence of the stimulus-response compatibility effect and Simon effect on the SNARC effect in a space classification task (Experiment 1), numerical magnitude classification task (Experiment 2), numerical parity classification task (Experiment 3), and color classification task (Experiment 4). The results indicated that (a) the stimulus-response compatibility effect, not the SNARC effect, prevailed in the numerical space classification task; (b) the SNARC effect, not the Simon effect, prevailed in the numerical magnitude and parity classification task; and (c) the Simon effect and the SNARC effect coexisted in the color classification task. These results suggested that the influence of number location on the SNARC effect was moderated by the task performed. Implications for the theory of the SNARC effect and Simon effect are discussed.

The influence of the location of ordered symbols on the ordinal position effect: The involvement of the task performed

Since the ordinal position effect was identified, several studies have investigated its mechanism in various contexts; however, how the space location of ordinal symbols influences this effect remains unclear. Thus, the present study explored Chinese words representing the day before yesterday, yesterday, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow as ordinal symbols to investigate how the stimulus space location influences the ordinal position effect across different task contexts. We randomly and equally presented days on the left or right location of a display and asked participants to perform a stimulus space location, a stimulus colour and a stimulus order classification task in three consecutive experiments, respectively. The results revealed that the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect and Simon effect prevailed in the stimulus space location and colour classification task. Conversely, the ordinal position effect prevailed in the stimulus order classification task. These results suggested that (1) the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect (or Simon effect) and the ordinal position effect cannot appear simultaneously in some experimental contexts and that (2) the task context predicted which of these effects prevailed. From these results, we conclude that the ordinal symbols could be coded depending on multiple reference frames, including spatial and non-spatial reference frame, and the use of the reference frame was mediated by the task context.

Test-retest reliability of the simon task: a short version proposal

Background: The standard version of the Simon task (an instrument for assessing attentional demands, inhibitory control and the perception-action cycle) comprises a total of 168 trials. Different versions of this task are used in the literature, but it is not clear whether the Simon effect can be found using brief versions of the test.Purpose: This study aims to investigate the presence of the Simon effect and its test-retest reliability in a brief version of 28 trials of the Simon task.Material and Methods: Ninety-two (92) subjects between the ages of 18-30 participated in this study. Participants performed two sessions (test and retest) in which the brief battery of the Simon task was used. Latency (reaction time - RT) and the accuracy (number of errors) were measured for the two typical conditions of the test (corresponding and non-corresponding).Results: A significant interaction (two-way ANOVA) between condition and moment (test vs. retest) was found for RT. Main effects were observed for both conditions (corresponding vs. non- corresponding) and moment (test vs. retest). A good measurement of reliability (α Cronbach = 0.883) was also observed.Conclusions: The 28-trial battery of the Simon Task seems to be efficient for eliciting the Simon Effect and it can therefore be considered reliable.

Grasping a Chestnut Burr

This work aimed to assess the role of manual laterality in action coding strategies and, subsequently, in environmental features relevant for each hand's action. Relying on Eder and Hommel's (2013) proposal, we distinguished stimulus-related and end state-related consequences in a Simon paradigm where right-handed participants were divided into two groups, one responding with gloves and one without. Two objects were presented pictorially: one for which sensory consequences of grasping were negatively valenced (a chestnut burr), and one for which they were positively valenced (an apricot). By these means, stimulus and end-state effects could be assessed separately, along with the relevance of each feature of the experimental settings. Results showed that the use of one's dominant or non dominant hand gives rise to different repercussions of stimulus-related and end state-related effects on response: Responses made with the right (dominant) hand were based on an elaborated coding (representing features of stimulus-related and end state-related consequences of action). In contrast, responses made with the left (non dominant) hand seemed to be based on a less elaborated coding (not taking into account end-state consequences of an action).

Affective influences without approach-avoidance actions: on the congruence between valence and stimulus-response mappings

The valence of stimuli can influence performance in the spatial stimulus-response compatibility task, but this observation could arise from the process of selecting responses or selecting stimulus-response mappings. The response-selection account proposes that spatial compatible and incompatible keypress responses serve as approaching and avoiding actions to a valenced target. The mapping-selection account suggests that there is congruence between stimulus valence and stimulus-response mappings; positive-compatible/negative-incompatible is more congruent than negative-compatible/positive-incompatible. Whereas affective valence was part of the target stimuli to which participants responded in previous studies, the present study isolated affective valence from the target by presenting an additional mapping cue separately from the target, so that spatially compatible and incompatible keypress responses could no longer serve as approaching and avoiding actions to valenced target stimuli. The present results revealed that responses were still faster when positive and negative mapping cues were assigned to the spatially compatible and incompatible mappings than when the assignment was reversed. The finding supports the mapping-selection account, indicating that positive and negative cues influence performance without approach-avoidance actions to valenced stimuli. The experiment provides important implications as to how tasks are represented and are dependent on affective processing.