Abstract
The Simon effect represents a phenomenon in which the location of the stimuli affects the speed and accuracy of the response, despite being irrelevant for the task demands. This is believed to be due to an automatic activation of a response corresponding to the location of the stimuli, which conflicts with the controlled decision process based on relevant stimuli features. Previously, differences in the nature of the Simon effect (i.e., the pattern of change of the effect across the distribution of response times) between visual and somatosensory stimuli were reported. We hypothesize that the temporal dynamics of visual and somatosensory automatic and controlled processes vary, thus driving the reported behavioral differences. While most studies have used response times to study the underlying mechanisms involved, in this study we had participants reach out to touch the targets and recorded their arm movements using a motion capture system. Importantly, the participants started their movements before a final decision was made. In this way, we could analyze the movements to gain insights into the competition between the automatic and controlled processes. We used this technique to describe the results in terms of a model assuming automatic activation due to location-based evidence, followed by inhibition. We found that for the somatosensory Simon effect, the decay of the automatic process is significantly slower than for the visual Simon effect, suggesting quantitative differences in this automatic process between the visual and somatosensory modalities.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aisenberg, D., & Henik, A. (2012). Stop being neutral: Simon takes control! Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,65(2), 295–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2010.507819.
Blair, R. C., & Karniski, W. (1993). An alternative method for significance testing of waveform difference potentials. Psychophysiology,30(5), 518–524. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1993.tb02075.x.
Brainard, D. H. (1997). The psychophysics toolbox. Spatial Vision,10(4), 433–436. https://doi.org/10.1163/156856897X00357.
Buetti, S., & Kerzel, D. (2009). Conflicts during response selection affect response programming: Reactions toward the source of stimulation. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance,35(3), 816–834. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0011092.
Crevecoeur, F., Barrea, A., Libouton, X., Thonnard, J.-L., & Lefèvre, P. (2017). Multisensory components of rapid motor responses to fingertip loading. Journal of Neurophysiology,118(1), 331–343. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00091.2017.
De Jong, R., Liang, C.-C., & Lauber, E. (1994). Conditional and unconditional automaticity: A dual-process model of effects of spatial stimulus–response correspondence. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance,20(4), 731–750. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.20.4.731.
Ellinghaus, R., Karlbauer, M., Bausenhart, K. M., & Ulrich, R. (2018). On the time-course of automatic response activation in the Simon task. Psychological Research,82(4), 734–743. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-017-0860-z.
Finkbeiner, M., Coltheart, M., & Coltheart, V. (2014). Pointing the way to new constraints on the dynamical claims of computational models. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance,40(1), 172–185. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033169.
Finkbeiner, M., & Friedman, J. (2011). The flexibility of nonconsciously deployed cognitive processes: Evidence from masked congruence priming. PLoS One,6(2), e17095. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017095.
Finkbeiner, M., & Heathcote, A. (2016). Distinguishing the time- and magnitude-difference accounts of the Simon effect: Evidence from the reach-to-touch paradigm. Attention Perception and Psychophysics,78, 848–867. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-015-1044-9.
Flash, T., & Henis, E. A. (1991). Arm trajectory modification during reaching towards visual targets. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,3(3), 220–230. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.1991.3.3.220.
Flash, T., & Hogan, N. (1985). The coordination of arm movements: An experimentally confirmed mathematical model. Journal of Neuroscience,5(7), 1688–1703.
Friedman, J. (2014). Repeated measures (computer software). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10438.
Friedman, J., Brown, S., & Finkbeiner, M. (2013). Linking cognitive and reaching trajectories via intermittent movement control. Journal of Mathematical Psychology,57(3–4), 140–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2013.06.005.
Friedman, J., & Finkbeiner, M. (2010). Temporal dynamics of masked congruence priming: Evidence from reaching trajectories. In W. Christensen, E. Schier, & J. Sutton (Eds.), Proceedings of the 9th conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science (pp. 98–105). Sydney: Macquarie University. https://doi.org/10.5096/ascs200916.
Hommel, B. (1994). Spontaneous decay of response-code activation. Psychological Research,56(4), 261–268. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00419656.
Hommel, B. (2009). Action control according to TEC (theory of event coding). Psychological Research,73(4), 512–526. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-009-0234-2.
Horowitz, J., Majeed, Y. A., & Patton, J. (2016). A fresh perspective on dissecting action into discrete submotions. In 2016 38th annual international conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC) (pp. 5684–5688). Presented at the 2016 38th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC). https://doi.org/10.1109/embc.2016.7592017.
Karayanidis, F., Provost, A., Brown, S., Paton, B., & Heathcote, A. (2011). Switch-specific and general preparation map onto different ERP components in a task-switching paradigm. Psychophysiology,48(4), 559–568. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2010.01115.x.
Marcos, E., Cos, I., Girard, B., & Verschure, P. F. M. J. (2015). motor cost influences perceptual decisions. PLoS One,10(12), e0144841. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144841.
Moher, J., & Song, J.-H. (2014). Perceptual decision processes flexibly adapt to avoid change-of-mind motor costs. Journal of Vision,14(8), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1167/14.8.1.
Proctor, R. W., Miles, J. D., & Baroni, G. (2011). Reaction time distribution analysis of spatial correspondence effects. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review,18(2), 242–266. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-011-0053-5.
Pruszynski, J. A., Johansson, R. S., & Flanagan, J. R. (2016). A rapid tactile-motor reflex automatically guides reaching toward handheld objects. Current Biology,26(6), 788–792. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.027.
Ratcliff, R. (1979). Group reaction time distributions and an analysis of distribution statistics. Psychological Bulletin,86(3), 446–461.
Ratcliff, R. (2006). Modeling response signal and response time data. Cognitive Psychology,53(3), 195–237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2005.10.002.
Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G. (2008). The diffusion decision model: Theory and data for two-choice decision tasks. Neural Computation,20(4), 873–922. https://doi.org/10.1162/neco.2008.12-06-420.
Ridderinkhof, K. R. (2002). Activation and suppression in conflict tasks: empirical clarification through distributional analyses. In W. Prinz & B. Hommel (Eds.), Common mechanisms in perception and action (pp. 494–519). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rohrer, B., & Hogan, N. (2006). Avoiding spurious submovement decompositions II: A scattershot algorithm. Biological Cybernetics,94(5), 409–414. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-006-0055-y.
Salzer, Y. (2013). Cognitive control in the tactile Simon task: The unique role of tactile spatial information (PhD). Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Salzer, Y., Aisenberg, D., Oron-Gilad, T., & Henik, A. (2014). In touch with the Simon effect. Experimental Psychology,61(3), 165–179. https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169/a000236.
Salzer, Y., de Hollander, G., & Forstmann, B. U. (2017). Sensory neural pathways revisited to unravel the temporal dynamics of the Simon effect: A model-based cognitive neuroscience approach. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.02.023.
Schwarz, W., & Miller, J. (2012). Response time models of delta plots with negative-going slopes. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review,19(4), 555–574. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-012-0254-6.
Scorolli, C., Pellicano, A., Nicoletti, R., Rubichi, S., & Castiello, U. (2014). The Simon effect in action: Planning and/or on-line control effects? Cognitive Science,39(5), 972–991. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12188.
Servant, M., White, C., Montagnini, A., & Burle, B. (2016). Linking theoretical decision-making mechanisms in the simon task with electrophysiological data: A model-based neuroscience study in humans. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,28(10), 1501–1521. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00989.
Simon, J. R. (1990). The effects of an irrelevant directional cue on human information processing. In R. W. Proctor & T. G. Reeve (Eds.), Advances in psychology (Vol. 65, pp. 31–86). North-Holland. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0166-4115(08)61218-2.
Simon, J. R., & Wolf, J. D. (1963). Choice reaction time as a function of angular stimulus–response correspondence and age. Ergonomics,6(1), 99–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140136308930679.
Spivey, M. J., Grosjean, M., & Knoblich, G. (2005). Continuous attraction toward phonological competitors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,102(29), 10393–10398. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0503903102.
Töbel, L., Hübner, R., & Stürmer, B. (2014). Suppression of irrelevant activation in the horizontal and vertical Simon task differs quantitatively not qualitatively. Acta Psychologica,152, 47–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.07.007.
Trommershäuser, J., Maloney, L. T., & Landy, M. S. (2008). Decision making, movement planning and statistical decision theory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences,12(8), 291–297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.04.010.
Ulrich, R., Schröter, H., Leuthold, H., & Birngruber, T. (2015). Automatic and controlled stimulus processing in conflict tasks: Superimposed diffusion processes and delta functions. Cognitive Psychology,78, 148–174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2015.02.005.
Usher, M., & McClelland, J. L. (2001). The time course of perceptual choice: The leaky, competing accumulator model. Psychological Review,108(3), 550–592. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.550.
van den Wildenberg, W. P. M., Wylie, S. A., Forstmann, B. U., Burle, B., Hasbroucq, T., & Ridderinkhof, K. R. (2010). To head or to heed? Beyond the surface of selective action inhibition: A review. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience,4, 222. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2010.00222.
van Maanen, L., Turner, B., & Forstmann, B. U. (2015). From model-based perceptual decision-making to spatial interference control. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences,1, 72–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2014.10.010.
Wascher, E., Schatz, U., Kuder, T., & Verleger, R. (2001). Validity and boundary conditions of automatic response activation in the Simon task. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance,27(3), 731–751. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.27.3.731.
Welsh, T. N., Pacione, S. M., Neyedli, H. F., Ray, M., & Ou, J. (2015). Trajectory deviations in spatial compatibility tasks with peripheral and central stimuli. Psychological Research,79(4), 650–657. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-014-0597-x.
White, C. N., Servant, M., & Logan, G. D. (2018). Testing the validity of conflict drift-diffusion models for use in estimating cognitive processes: A parameter-recovery study. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review,25(1), 286–301. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1271-2.
Wiegand, K., & Wascher, E. (2005). Dynamic aspects of stimulus–response correspondence: Evidence for two mechanisms involved in the Simon effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance,31(3), 453–464. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.31.3.453.
Wiegand, K., & Wascher, E. (2007). The Simon effect for vertical S–R relations: Changing the mechanism by randomly varying the S–R mapping rule? Psychological Research,71(2), 219–233. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-005-0023-5.
Wispinski, N. J., Gallivan, J. P., & Chapman, C. S. (2019). Models, movements, and minds: Bridging the gap between decision making and action. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13973.
Woestenburg, J. C., Verbaten, M. N., van Hees, H. H., & Slangen, J. L. (1983). Single trial ERP estimation in the frequency domain using orthogonal polynomial trend analysis (OPTA): Estimation of individual habituation. Biological Psychology,17(2–3), 173–191. https://doi.org/10.1016/0301-0511(83)90018-2.
Xiong, A., & Proctor, R. W. (2016). Decreasing auditory Simon effects across reaction time distributions. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance,42(1), 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000117.
Acknowledgements
We thank Maayan Ben Nun for performing the data collection.
Data availability
The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Salzer, Y., Friedman, J. Reaching trajectories unravel modality-dependent temporal dynamics of the automatic process in the Simon task: a model-based approach. Psychological Research 84, 1700–1713 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01177-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01177-3