Effects of ideomotor compatibility and relative timing on the processing of multidimensional stimuli

Chen-Hui Lu, Purdue University

Abstract

Effects of ideomotor compatibility and relative timing on the processing of multidimensional stimuli were investigated. In Experiment 1, keypress responses were made to stimuli composed from a color word and a surrounding colored rectangle or from a location word and a surrounding arrow. Subjects were instructed to respond either to the verbal or nonverbal stimulus information, and the irrelevant information could be either congruent or incongruent with the relevant information. The irrelevant information was exposed before, simultaneous with, or after the relevant information at stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) values ranging from +500 to $-$500 ms. At the 0-ms SOA, incongruent irrelevant information produced interference when the relevant information was of low ideomotor compatibility, regardless of whether the irrelevant information was of high or low ideomotor compatibility. At positive SOAs, the interference tended to increase for the conditions in which the relevant information was verbal and to decrease for the conditions in which it was nonverbal. No significant interference was obtained when the relevant information preceded the irrelevant information. In Experiment 2, SOA was varied in smaller steps over a shorter range from 0 to 165 ms. Performance changed little across this range, indicating that the effects of interest occur over the longer range of positive SOAs used in Experiment 1. Irrelevant color-word and spatial-word information produced similar patterns of interference as a function of SOA in Experiment 3 when the relevant information was color. In Experiment 4, interference with responding to color persisted at the 500-ms SOA when the irrelevant information was a color word but not when it was the color of a nonword stimulus. In Experiment 5, articulatory suppression reduced the interference produced by the irrelevant color word at the 500-ms SOA. Experiment 6 demonstrated that the interference produced by the irrelevant color word is eliminated at extended SOAs of 3,000 and 4,000 ms. The results are generally consistent with the view that the effect of irrelevant information on performance is a function of the relative strengths of the relevant and irrelevant response activations and the temporal overlap of these activations.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Proctor, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Psychology|Experiments|Psychology

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