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The so-called spatial-size association of response codes (SSARC) effect denotes that humans respond faster and more accurately with a left response to physically small stimuli and a right response to physically large stimuli, as compared to the opposite mapping. According to an application of the CORE principle to the SSARC effect, the habit to grasp larger/heavier objects with one's dominant hand and smaller/lighter objects with one's non-dominant hand creates spatial-size associations. We investigated if grasping habits play a causal role in the formation of spatial-size associations by testing if the mapping of a preceding object-grasping task affects the size of the SSARC effect in subsequent choice-response tasks with keypress responses. In the object-grasping task, participants were instructed to grasp wooden cubes of variable size either according to a compatible (small-left; large-right) or according to an incompatible (small-right; large-left) mapping. In the choice-response tasks, participants responded with left or right keypresses to the size or color of a small or large stimulus. The results showed that participants with the compatible mapping in the object-grasping task showed a larger SSARC effect in the size discrimination task, but not in the color discrimination task, than participants with the incompatible mapping in the object-grasping task. Results suggest that a short period of practice with different size-location mappings can modulate size-location links used for controlled S-R translation, but not links underlying automatic S-R translation. In general, the results support the hypothesis that grasping habits play a causal role in the formation of spatial-size associations., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The FAIR-2 ('Frankfurter Aufmerksamkeitsinventar') is a pen-and-paper test of visual attention in which participants have to search for targets among distractors. For similar pen-and-paper tests of attention (e.g., d2), the repetition of the test causes large improvements in performance that threaten both its (retest) reliability and validity. We investigated the size and possible sources of practice effects in the FAIR-2 in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were tested twice using the original FAIR-2. We compared how performance changed after 2 weeks (Experiment 1) or 3 months (Experiment 2), when the test was repeated (complete repetition), or when targets and distractors changed their roles (test reversal). For Experiment 3, we used self-constructed versions of the FAIR that allowed for a third neutral condition (complete alternation) without any stimulus overlap between the two tests. The complete repetition condition produced strong performance gains (25-35%) that persisted for 3 months. For the complete-alternation condition, we observed small to moderate improvements, suggesting that stimulus-independent learning had occurred in session 1. Finally, performance did not differ between test reversal and complete alternation, therefore, suggesting that improvements in target processing had caused the large improvements in the complete-repetition condition., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

The present study investigated the impact of the dominant hand on performance in two paper-and-pencil tests of visual selective attention (d2-R; FAIR-2). We hypothesized that preview benefits (i.e., preprocessing of stimuli located to the right of the currently fixated item) could improve test performance of left-handers as compared to right-handers because using the right hand could prevent preview benefits simply by covering subsequent stimuli. A group of left-handed students (n = 86) and a group of right-handed students (n = 90) completed both the test d2-R and the test FAIR-2 with their dominant (writing) hand. Results showed that left-handed participants outperformed right-handers in both tests. Hence, when the results of left-handers are to be compared to right-handers or to normative data (which are dominated by right-handers), the impact of preview benefits on left-hander performance should be taken into account.

Judging offside in football represents a typical go-nogo task (offside-raising the flag, no offside-no response). Nevertheless, several studies involved two-choice tasks (e.g. offside-press key A, no offside-press key B) to investigate potential sources of errors in offside situations. While go-nogo and choice-response tasks are commonly used in experimental psychology, response preferences may differ between the two tasks. Therefore, we investigated the impact of response requirements on offside judgments in a sample of male participants without experience in professional refereeing. Each participant judged displays of potential offside situations in a go-nogo condition and in a two-choice condition. The results show that response requirements affected the response bias of the participants and suggest that go-nogo requirements increase the preference for the positive response (i.e. the offside response) as compared to the two-choice task. We discuss both methodological and theoretical implications of this finding.

We used variants of the Simon task to investigate whether repetitions and alternations in short keypress sequences are represented by spatial or relational codes. With spatial coding, either absolute or relative location would be used for coding the second response in a sequence. With relational coding, the second response would be coded in terms of a non-spatial relation to the first one (e.g., left response-same response, for a repetition). In three experiments with different imperative stimuli, we compared Simon effects across three experimental conditions, a single-response condition, a response-repetition condition (each stimulus required two keypresses on the same side, e.g., left-left), and a response-alternation condition (each stimulus required a keypress on each side, e.g., left-right). When compared to the single-response condition, spatial coding of the second response should modulate the Simon effect (i.e., response conflict) in selecting the first response because spatial coding of the second response produces additional dimensional overlap of stimulus and the second-response code. We observed Simon effects in the response times of first responses in each condition, and they increased in the response-alternation condition, but not in the response-repetition condition. The findings suggest relational coding of response repetitions, and spatial coding of response alternations.

Participants are worse at identifying spatial symbols (arrowheads) while performing spatially compatible manual key presses. The present experiments investigated the generality of this "blindness effect" to response-compatible stimuli. In Experiment 1 a left key press deteriorated the identification of left-pointing arrows, and a right key press deteriorated the perception of right-pointing arrows, independent of the hands used to press the key. Thus the blindness effect is based on codes of the distal response location rather than on the body-intrinsic anatomical connection of the hands. Experiment 2 extended the blindness effect to verbal responses and written position words (left, right, up, down). Vocalizing a position word blinded to directly compatible position words (e.g., left-left), but not to orthogonally compatible position words (e.g., left-down). This result suggests that the use of identical stimulus-response codes, and not the use of saliency-matching but distinct codes, suffices to produce blindness effects. Finally, Experiment 3 extended the blindness phenomenon beyond the spatial domain by demonstrating blindness between saying color words and perceiving color patches. Altogether, the experiments revealed action-induced blindness to be a phenomenon of broad empirical validity occurring whenever action and perception afford simultaneous access to the same conceptual codes.