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Irrelevant Stimuli and Action Control: Analyzing the Influence of Ignored Stimuli via the Distractor-Response Binding Paradigm

Selection tasks in which simple stimuli (e.g. letters) are presented and a target stimulus has to be selected against one or more distractor stimuli are ...

Trier University

In selection tasks where target stimuli are accompanied by distractors, responses to target stimuli, target stimuli and the distractor stimuli can be encoded together as one episode in memory. Subsequent repetition of any aspect of such an episode can lead to the retrieval of the whole episode including the response. Thus, repeating a distractor can retrieve responses given to previous targets; this mechanism was labeled distractor-response binding and has been evidenced in vision and audition. Yet, previous research suggests possibly different distractor processing in the tactile as compared to the visual modality. In the present study, we therefore used a selection task in which participants always responded to one tactile stimulus while ignoring another. Evidence for the integration of tactile distractors with target responses was found in response times and errors. Our results indicate that binding of responses to distractors is a cognitive process that is independent of the stimulus' modality.

Remember the touch: tactile distractors retrieve previous responses to targets.

A distractor can be integrated with a target response and the subsequent repetition of the distractor can facilitate or hamper responding depending on whether the same or a different response is required, a phenomenon labeled distractor-response binding. In two experiments we used a priming paradigm with an identification task to investigate influences of stimulus grouping on the binding of irrelevant stimuli (distractors) and responses in audition. In a grouped condition participants heard relevant and irrelevant sounds in one central location, whereas in a non-grouped condition the relevant sound was presented to one ear and the irrelevant sound was presented to the other ear. Distractor-based retrieval of the prime response was stronger for the grouped compared to the non-grouped presentation of stimuli indicating that binding of irrelevant auditory stimuli with responses is modulated by perceptual grouping.

Integrating the irrelevant sound.

Distractor-based retrieval of event files was assessed with a sequential priming experiment using a four-choice identification task. Pictures or sounds of four different animals (frog, chicken, lamb, singing bird) had to be categorized by pressing one of four keys. On each trial, a target and a distractor stimulus were presented simultaneously in different modalities. The relevant modality switched randomly between trials. Distractor repetition effects were modulated by the response relation between the prime and probe: Repeating the prime distractor in the probe produced facilitation if the response repeated, but not if a different response had to be given in the prime and probe. Repeating the prime distractor in the probe led to an automatic retrieval of the prime response. Importantly, this distractor-based response retrieval effect also emerged for those sequences in which the modality of the repeated distractor was switched between the prime and probe. This cross-modal priming effect indicates that distractors were integrated into event files on a conceptual level and that response retrieval processes were mediated by conceptual codes of the distractor stimuli.

Retrieval of event files can be conceptually mediated.

The binding of stimulus and response features into SR episodes or "event files" is a basic process for the efficient control of behavior. However, relevant information is usually accompanied by information that is irrelevant for the selection of action and recent studies showed that this irrelevant information is also bound into event files. In this study, we investigated the possible modulation of distractor-response binding due to stress. To this end, participants were treated with a variant of the cold pressure stress test and worked through a binding experiment before and directly after the stress treatment. Physiological and subjective stress measures were surveyed and did predict the change in binding effects: binding in stressed participants ceased as compared to a non-stressed control group. Increases in cortisol and blood pressure are discussed as main reasons for decreased SR retrieval.

Stress disrupts distractor-based retrieval of SR episodes.

In this review, we analyze the cognitive processes contributing to selection in audition. In particular, we focus on the processing of auditory distractors in sequential selection paradigms in which target stimuli are accompanied by distractors. We review the evidence from two established tasks, namely the auditory negative priming and the auditory distractor-response binding task, and discuss the cognitive mechanisms contributing to the results typically observed in these tasks. In fact, several processes have been suggested as to explain how distractors are processed and handled in audition; that is, auditory distractors can be inhibited, encoded with a do-not-respond-tag, integrated into a stimulus-response episode containing the response to the target, or upheld in working memory and matched/mismatched with the following distractor. In addition, variables possibly modulating these cognitive processes are discussed. Finally, auditory distractor processing is compared with distractor processing in vision.

Auditory distractor processing in sequential selection tasks.

Grégoire, Perruchet, and Poulin-Charronnat (2013) investigated a musical variant of the reversed Stroop effect. According to the authors, one big advantage of this variant is that the automaticity of note naming can be better controlled than in other Stroop variants as musicians are very practiced in note reading whereas non-musicians are not. In this comment we argue that at present the exact impact of automaticity in this Stroop variant remains somewhat unclear for at least three reasons, namely due to the type of information that is automatically retrieved when notes are encountered, due to the possible influence of object-based attention, and finally due to the fact that the exact influence of expertise on interference cannot be pinpointed with an extreme group design.

How automatic is the musical stroop effect? Commentary on “the musical stroop effect: opening a new avenue to research on automatisms” by l. Grégoire, P. Perruchet, and B. Poulin-Charronnat (Experimental Psychology, 2013, vol. 60, pp. 269–278).

Response-irrelevant stimuli can be encoded with, and later on retrieve, a response given to a relevant stimulus, an effect that is called distractor-response binding. In three experiments using a prime-probe design, we investigated whether the allocation of attention modulates the processes contributing to distractor-response binding. Participants identified letters via keypresses while attending to one of two sets of simultaneously presented but response-irrelevant number stimuli. In different experiments, both spatial attention and feature-based attention were allocated to the response-irrelevant stimuli. The results showed that only attended response-irrelevant stimuli elicited effects of distractor-response binding. In particular, while the encoding of response-irrelevant stimuli and responses was not particularly affected by attention during prime processing, only attended response-irrelevant stimuli in the probe retrieved previous responses. Hence, we show that attention affects action regulation due to modulating the influence of stimulus-response binding on behavior.

Birte Moeller

Cognitive Psychology Unit,
Institute of Psychology,
Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology

Trier University

Irrelevant Stimuli and Action Control: Analyzing the Influence of Ignored Stimuli via the Distractor-Response Binding Paradigm

Birte Moeller

.css-o250i3{font-size:18px;font-family:Open Sans,sans-serif;line-height:21.6px;}Cognitive Psychology Unit,Institute of Psychology,Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology

Trier University

Irrelevant Stimuli and Action Control: Analyzing the Influence of Ignored Stimuli via the Distractor-Response Binding Paradigm

Cognitive Psychology Unit,
Institute of Psychology,
Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology