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The slope of the function relating response times to the number of stimuli in a visual-search display is commonly considered a measure of search speed and is extensively used to test theories of visual cognition. Unfortunately, this important measure is confounded in multiple ways so that many classical findings in the literature must be called into question. As a way out of this predicament, we here develop a new technique to measure search speed (data collected in 2022 and 2023): Instead of manipulating the number of stimuli that need to be searched via a set-size manipulation, we achieve the intended purpose by placing the search target at different spatial positions with respect to an a-priori-known search order. Reliably inducing such a search order is the main achievement of the present study, but we also report several additional data patterns that might turn out instrumental for future research on visual attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

When two speeded tasks have spatially overlapping responses, preactivated Task 2 (T2) response information influences Task 1 (T1) response selection, a phenomenon known as the backward crosstalk effect (BCE). Current models of the BCE implicitly assume that T2 response information is equally present in trials requiring compatible or incompatible responses, such that T1 performance improves when T2 requires a compatible response and deteriorates when T2 requires an incompatible response. Thus, T2 response information should have a facilitatory and an interfering effect on T1. Interestingly, this hypothesis has never been tested, and the present study (conducted between 2021 and 2023) attempts to fill this gap by using neutral trials in which T2 responses did not spatially overlap with those in T1. The results suggest that the BCE (in T1) reflects both facilitation and interference effects of comparable magnitude, thus corroborating current conceptualizations of the BCE. We also observed an unexpected pattern of effects for T2, with only an interference effect, but no facilitation effect. Additional experiments led us to conclude that the T2 result was sensitive to the specific task characteristics. Conclusions about how the crosstalk transfers from T1 to T2 when switching tasks are therefore not possible. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

In multitasking research, a central question revolves around whether humans can process tasks in parallel. What "in parallel" refers to, however, differs between research perspectives and experimental approaches. From a task-level perspective , parallel processing can be conceived as to whether complete tasks are processed in an overlapping manner and how this impacts task performance. In contrast, a large body of literature solely focuses on the central stage of response-selection and whether it can run in parallel with other processing stages, an approach we refer to as the stage-level perspective . Importantly, although each perspective addresses related topics and highlights interindividual differences, they evolved through independent lines of research. In 2 experiments, we have taken a first step to investigate if individuals' tendencies for an overlapping versus serial processing mode on the task level are related to vulnerabilities for task interference on the stage level. Individual preferences for either task processing mode were assessed in the task switching with preview (TSWP) paradigm. Individuals' vulnerability for task interference was assessed with the backward crosstalk effect (BCE) in a classical dual task. Our results suggest that individuals who prefer overlapping relative to serial task processing at the task level are less vulnerable to task interference during response selection, indicated by a smaller BCE. This difference, however, only emerged in the second experiment with an increased sample size and with task-stimuli that facilitate a bottom-up separation of tasks in the dual-task. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Humans act goal-oriented, and this idea is at the core of ideomotor theory (IT), which claims that actions are selected by mentally anticipating the sensory consequences brought about by the respective bodily movement (i.e., their action effects). Evidence for this effect anticipation mainly derives from the response-effect (R-E) compatibility (REC) paradigm: In the spatial domain, for example, a left response is produced faster (and sometimes less error-prone) if followed by a compatible left rather than an incompatible right action effect. In the present study, we employed the diffusion model to elucidate the reasons for this observation. To this end, we reanalyzed data from the seminal study by Kunde (2001) and from a new experiment. The overall results suggest that REC affects drift rate. This result fits well with conceptualizing REC as an endogenously created case of stimulus-response compatibility (SRC). Several consequences of this view are discussed against the background of available empirical results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

People aim to produce effects in the environment, and according to ideomotor theory, actions are selected and executed via anticipations of their effects. Further, to ensure that an action has been successful and an effect has been realized, we must be able to monitor the consequences of our actions. However, action-effect links might vary between situations, some might apply for a majority of situations, while others might only apply to special occasions. With a combination of behavioral and electrophysiological markers, we show that monitoring of self-produced action effects interferes with other tasks, and that the length of effect monitoring is determined by both, long-term action-effect links that hold for most situations, and short-term action-effect links that emerge from a current setting. Effect monitoring is fast and frugal when these action-effect links allow for valid anticipation of action effects, but otherwise effect monitoring takes longer and delays a subsequent task. Specific influences of long-term and short-term links on the P1/N1 and P3a further allow to dissect the temporal dynamics of when these links interact for the purpose of effect monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

The backward crosstalk effect (BCE) in dual tasking means that characteristics of Task 2 of 2 subsequently performed tasks influence Task 1 performance. This observation indicates that certain features of the second response are already activated to some degree before the first response is selected. Therefore, the BCE challenges bottleneck models, which assume that Task 2 response selection does not begin until Task 1 response selection is finished. Instead, an extended model with a capacity-unlimited response activation stage prior to the bottleneck as the locus of the BCE was suggested. To determine the exact locus of the BCE within the stages of task processing, 5 experiments were carried out. Experiments 1 to 4 were psychological refractory period-like experiments with 3 subsequent tasks. A prebottleneck locus of the BCE was ruled out in Experiments 1 to 3 by using the locus of slack logic. Additionally, a postbottleneck locus of the BCE was ruled out in Experiment 4 by using the effect propagation logic. To further support this latter conclusion, Experiment 5 applied a go-signal manipulation. Taken together, the results of all 5 experiments strongly suggest that the BCE has its locus in the capacity-limited stage, which contradicts the widely accepted notion that a capacity-unlimited stage of response activation preceding response selection proper is the locus of the BCE. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

In dual-task studies, Task 1 performance is often improved when Task 2 requires a spatially compatible response (i.e., 1 on the same side)-the backward crosstalk effect (BCE). This BCE is taken as evidence that at least some of the tasks' central processing related to response selection occurs in parallel, and the size of the BCE has been interpreted as an index of how well Task 1 is shielded against influences from the concurrent Task 2 processing. In 3 experiments, it is investigated whether the compatibility status of the previous trial influences the BCE similar to the Gratton effect observed for conflict tasks. In all experiments, the BCE was large after a compatible trial but absent (or reversed) after an incompatible trial, thus a Gratton-like sequential modulation of the BCE. This result suggests rapid bottom-up adjustments as a consequence of just-experienced incompatibility of responses. One explanation is that the degree of allowed parallel processing during Task 1 response selection is adjusted according to recent experience., ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

The last decades have seen a growing interest in the impact of action on perception and other concurrent cognitive processes. One particularly interesting example is that manual rotation actions facilitate mental rotations in the same direction. The present study extends this research in two fundamental ways. First, Experiment 1 demonstrates that not only manual rotations facilitate mental rotations but that mental rotations also facilitate subsequent manual rotations. Second, Experiments 2 and 3 targeted the mechanisms underlying this interplay. Here, manual steering wheel rotations produced salient visual effects, namely the rotation of either a plane or a horizon in an aviation display. The rotation direction of these visual effects either did or did not correspond to the direction of the manual rotation itself. These experiments clearly demonstrate an impact of sensory action effects: Mental rotations facilitate manual rotations with visual effects of the same direction (as the mental rotation), irrespective of the direction of the manual rotation. These findings highlight the importance of effect anticipation in action planning. As such they support the contentions of ideomotor theory and shed new light on the cognitive source of the interplay between visual imagery and motor control., ((PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).)

Transformations of hand movements by tools such as levers or electronic input devices can invoke performance costs compared to untransformed movements. This study investigated by means of the Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm at which stage of information processing such tool-transformation costs arise. We used an inversion transformation, that is, the movement of the operating hand was transformed into a spatially incompatible movement of a lever. As a basic tool-transformation effect, the initiation of inverted tool movements was delayed compared to noninverted movements. Experiment 1 suggested a central (or postcentral) locus of this tool-transformation effect and ruled out a (precentral) perceptual locus. Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed the central locus and ruled out a later, motor-related stage of processing. The results show that spatially incompatible tool movements delay a capacity-limited stage of information processing, often referred to as response selection.

Human actions are guided either by endogenous action plans or by external stimuli in the environment. These two types of action control seem to be mediated by neurophysiologically and functionally distinct systems that interfere if an endogenously planned action suddenly has to be performed in response to an exogenous stimulus. In this case, the endogenous representation has to be deactivated first to give way to the exogenous system. Here we show that interference of endogenous and exogenous action control is not limited to motor-related aspects but also affects the perception of action-related stimuli. Participants associated two actions with contingent sensory effects in learning blocks. In subsequent test blocks, preparing one of these actions specifically impaired responding to the associated effect in an exogenous speeded detection task, yielding a blindness-like effect for arbitrary, learned action effects. In accordance with the theory of event coding, this finding suggests that action planning influences perception even in the absence of any physical similarities between action and to-be-perceived stimuli.