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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).

In psychological experiments, participants are typically instructed to respond as fast as possible without sacrificing accuracy. How they interpret this instruction and, consequently, which speed-accuracy trade-off they choose might vary between experiments, between participants, and between conditions. Consequently, experimental effects can appear unpredictably in either RTs or error rates (i.e., accuracy). Even more problematic, spurious effects might emerge that are actually due only to differential speed-accuracy trade-offs. An often-suggested solution is the inverse efficiency score (IES; Townsend & Ashby, 1983), which combines speed and accuracy into a single score. Alternatives are the rate-correct score (RCS; Woltz & Was, 2006) and the linear-integrated speed-accuracy score (LISAS; Vandierendonck, 2017, 2018). We report analyses on simulated data generated with the standard diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978) showing that IES, RCS, and LISAS put unequal weights on speed and accuracy, depending on the accuracy level, and that these measures are actually very sensitive to speed-accuracy trade-offs. These findings stand in contrast to a fourth alternative, the balanced integration score (BIS; Liesefeld, Fu, & Zimmer, 2015), which was devised to integrate speed and accuracy with equal weights. Although all of the measures maintain "real" effects, only BIS is relatively insensitive to speed-accuracy trade-offs.

A frequent observation in dual-task studies is the backward crosstalk effect (BCE), meaning that aspects of a secondary Task 2 influence Task 1 performance. Up to this point, 2 major types of the BCE were investigated: a BCE based on dimensional overlap between both stimuli and/or responses (the compatibility-based BCE), and a BCE based on whether Task 2 is a go or no-go task (the no-go BCE). Recent evidence suggests that the compatibility-based BCE has its locus inside the response selection stage. The available evidence for the locus of the no-go BCE is still mixed, however. To this end, the 3 experiments reported in the present study used an extended psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm with 3 subsequent tasks. Applying the locus of slack logic in Experiment 1, the no-go BCE was not absorbed into the cognitive slack and, thus, a locus before response selection could be ruled out. Subsequently applying the effect propagation logic in Experiment 2 and 3, the no-go BCE arising in Task 1 was even inverted in Task 3. Because no propagation of the no-go BCE was observed, a locus before or in response selection could be ruled out. Thus, we conclude that the no-go BCE has its locus during motor execution. Because the no-go BCE and the compatibility-based BCE are located in different stages, we suggest that both types of the BCE do not share a common underlying mechanism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

In the present study, we considered error-related brain activity in event-related potentials, to investigate the relationship between error monitoring-that is, the detection and evaluation of erroneous responses-and action effect monitoring-that is, monitoring of the sensory consequences of behavior. To this end, participants worked on a task-switching paradigm that consisted of a free-choice task, in which a puzzle piece had to be attached to an existing one (the prime task), and a subsequent color flanker task (the probe task). We examined whether unexpected action effects in the prime task would affect the subsequent error monitoring in the probe task. We found the neural correlates of error monitoring during the probe task, the error-related negativity as well as the error positivity, to be increased after unexpected action effects in the prime task. In contrast, the neural correlates of visual attention were decreased after unexpected action effects, in line with recent findings on an attenuation of sensory processing after errors. Our results demonstrate a direct link between monitoring processes in the two tasks. We propose that both error monitoring and action effect monitoring rely on a common generic monitoring system related to novelty detection or affective processing. Preactivating this system by means of unexpected action effects increases the sensitivity for detecting an error in the subsequent task.

The authors regret that some errors that had been addressed during the proofing process were not corrected by the publisher. Most of these errors are of a stylistic nature and do not change the substance of the article. Please note, however, that the corresponding author's e-mail address is christoph.naefgen@uni-tuebingen.de. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this.

Response times (RTs) for free choice tasks are usually longer than those for forced choice tasks. We examined the cause for this difference in a study with intermixed free and forced choice trials, and adopted the rationale of sequential sampling frameworks to test two alternative accounts: Longer RTs in free choices are caused (1) by lower rates of information accumulation, or (2) by additional cognitive processes that delay the start of information accumulation. In three experiments, we made these accounts empirically discriminable by manipulating decision thresholds via the frequency of catch trials (Exp. 1) or via inducing time pressure (Exp. 2 and 3). Our results supported the second account, suggesting a temporal delay of information accumulation in free choice tasks, while the accumulation rate remains comparable. We propose that response choice in both tasks relies on information accumulation towards a specific goal. While in forced choice tasks, this goal is externally determined by the stimulus, in free choice tasks, it needs to be generated internally, which requires additional time.

Everyday life offers a variety of possible actions, from which we choose one that corresponds to our intended goals. How do these goals and actions interact within the mind? One way to investigate this question is free-choice tasks, where participants freely choose the action they want to perform on any given trial. Such tasks are used in research on voluntary actions and goal-driven behavior, such as ideomotor theory. However, these tasks leave participants with a substantial amount of freedom and allow for different response strategies. Such strategies can, though being hidden in the final data, influence the results, for example by hiding the effects of manipulations of interest. To better understand participants' behavior in free-choice tasks, we used mouse tracking in an ideomotor free-choice experiment, where participants learn the connection between an action and an effect. Subsequently, they have to freely choose between actions, while the former effect is presented as a stimulus. We identified two distinct groups that applied different decision strategies. The first group made the decision at the beginning of or before the trial, irrespective of the yet to be presented effect stimulus. The second group decided within the trial and was affected by the stimulus more often. This suggests that people handle free-choice tasks differently which is expressed in heterogeneous choice patterns and response times and an underestimation of the examined effects. These differences potentially limit the reliability of inferences from free-choice experiments and should be considered in the interpretation of their results., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The Backward Crosstalk Effect (BCE) indicates that response features of Task 2 in a dual-task paradigm influence even Task 1 performance. However, it can be assumed that responses are represented with multiple features in the cognitive system. In this regard, Ideomotor Theory suggests action effects as one central response feature in human action control and an earlier study by Janczyk, Pfister, Hommel, and Kunde (Cognition 132: 30-43, 2014) already provided some evidence that action effects are a crucial determinant of the BCE. The present study aimed to further investigate which response features are critical for the BCE. Therefore, a crossed-hands manipulation was implemented in two experiments to examine whether the spatial position of the actual response and thus its associated action effects or the body-side of the effectors' anatomical connection determine the BCE. Analyses revealed that even when participants press a left response key with the right hand and vice versa, the usual BCE occurs. These results indicate that the BCE depends on spatial features of the action effects rather than on anatomical features and thus provide additional support for the assumption that action effects have an important influence on the BCE and on action control in general.

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).)

Free choice tasks are tasks in which two or more equally valid response options per stimulus exist from which participants can choose. In investigations of the putative difference between self-generated and externally triggered actions, they are often contrasted with forced choice tasks, in which only one response option is considered correct. Usually, responses in free choice tasks are slower when compared with forced choice task responses, which may point to a qualitative difference in response selection. It was, however, also suggested that free choice tasks are in fact random generation tasks. Here, we tested the prediction that in this case, randomness of the free choice responses depends on working memory (WM) load. In Experiment 1, participants were provided with varying levels of external WM support in the form of displayed previous choices. In Experiment 2, WM load was induced via a concurrent n-back task. The data generally confirm the prediction: in Experiment 1, WM support improved both randomness and speed of responses. In Experiment 2, randomness decreased and responses slowed down with increasing WM load. These results suggest that free choice tasks have much in common with random generation tasks.

In dual-task situations, which often involve some form of sequential task processing, features of Task 2 were shown to affect Task 1 performance, a phenomenon termed "backward crosstalk effect" (BCE). Most previous reports of BCEs are based on manipulations of code compatibility between tasks, while there is no clear picture whether and how mere Task 2 response selection difficulty (in the absence of cross-task dimensional code overlap, including effector system overlap) may also affect Task 1 performance. In the present study, we systematically manipulated response-response (R1-R2) relation (compatible, incompatible, arbitrary) and the stimulus-response (S-R) relation in Task 2 (S2-R2: compatible, incompatible, arbitrary; i.e., a classic manipulation of Task 2 response selection difficulty) to study the impact of dimensional overlap and compatibility within and across tasks using an integrated stimulus for both a vocal Task 1 and a manual Task 2. Results revealed a replication of a classic (spatial) R1-R2 compatibility BCE (based on code compatibility), demonstrating that our paradigm is principally suited to capture typical BCEs. Importantly, conditions involving a removal of dimensional code overlap between tasks still yielded an effect of mere Task 2 response selection difficulty on Task 1 performance. Both types of BCEs (i.e., BCEs based on code compatibility and BCEs based on Task 2 difficulty) could be assumed to be rooted in anticipation of response selection difficulty triggered by stimuli indicating either R1-R2 or S2-R2 incompatibility. The results are in line with recent theoretical claims that anticipations of response characteristics (or effects) play an important role for BCEs in particular and for conflict resolution in action control in general., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Cognitive control refers to the ability to make correct decisions concurrent to distracting information, and to adapt to conflicting stimulus configurations, eventually promoting goal-directed behavior. Previous research has linked individual differences in cognitive control to psychopathological conditions such as anxiety. However, a link with uncertainty tolerance (UT) has not been tested so far, although both constructs describe cognitive and behavioral performance in ambiguous situations, thus they share some similarities. We probed cognitive control in web-based experimentation (jsPsych) with a simple flanker task (N = 111) and a version without confounds in episodic memory (N = 116). Both experiments revealed two well-established behavioral indices: congruency effects (CEs) and congruency-sequence effects (CSEs). Only small-to-zero correlations emerged between CEs, UT, and need for cognitive closure (NCC), a personality trait inversely related to UT. A subtle correlation (r = .18) was noted in Experiment 2 between NCC and CSE. Throughout, Bayesian analyses provided anecdotal-to-moderate evidence for the null-hypotheses.

Congruency effects in conflict tasks are reliably reduced after experiencing conflict, that is, following incongruent trials. Such sequential modulations (sometimes referred to as the Gratton effect) indicate the operation of conflict adaptation mechanisms. The influential conflict monitoring hypothesis suggested that after conflict the processing of relevant stimulus dimensions is increased. Alternatively, it was suggested that the influence of automatic response activation is suppressed following conflict. In two experiments, participants worked on the same cognitive task (Experiment 1: Eriksen flanker; Experiment 2: Simon) with the same kind of stimulation. A cue indicated whether they should respond with the hands or the feet. When the effector system repeated from the previous trial, a sequential modulation was reliably observed. When the effector system switched, however, the sequential modulation collapsed. These results are taken to argue for the suppression of effector system-specific response activations as a consequence of experiencing conflict. Alternative interpretations in terms of task-set and/or context switches are discussed.

Actions aim to produce effects in the environment. To accomplish this properly, we not only have to recruit the appropriate motor patterns, but also we must be able to monitor whether an intended effect has ultimately been realized. Here, we investigated the impact of such effect monitoring on performance in multitasking situations: Multitasking basically means to produce and monitor multiple actions and effects in fast succession. We show that effect monitoring cannot run in parallel, without causing processing decrements, with a second task. Also, monitoring of effects that are spatially incompatible to a response seems to take longer than the monitoring of spatially compatible action effects (Experiments 1 through 4). We further argue that effect monitoring is essential toward learning of response-effect associations, as it captures not only anticipated action effects, but also unpredictable occurrences in the environment (Experiments 5a and 5b). (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

In adults, the motor plans for object-directed grasping movements reflects the anticipated requirements of intended future object manipulations. This prospective mode of planning has been termed second-order planning. Surprisingly, second-order planning is thought to be fully developed only by 10 years of age, when children master seemingly more complex motor skills. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that already 5- and 6-year-old children consistently use second-order planning but that this ability does not become apparent in tasks that are traditionally used to probe it. We asked 5- and 6-year-olds and adults to grasp and rotate a circular dial in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Although children's grasp selections were less consistent on an intra- and inter-individual level than adults' grasp selections, all children adjusted their grasps to the upcoming dial rotations. By contrast, in an also administered bar rotation task, only a subset of children adjusted their grasps to different bar rotations, thereby replicating previous results. The results indicate that 5- and 6-year-olds consistently use second-order planning in a dial rotation task, although this ability does not become apparent in bar rotation tasks., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background/Study Context: The study investigated the Backward Crosstalk Effect (BCE) in dual-task situations, that is, the observation that Task 2 characteristics can even influence Task 1 processing. This observation suggests that the tasks are processed in parallel. Besides determining the existence of a BCE in a group of older adults, the size of the BCE was compared to that in a group of younger adults. Importantly, recent studies yielded unclear results., Methods: Twenty-four younger and older adults (19-27 and 58-71 years of age, respectively) performed a dual-task experiment, where Task 1 required a left/right manual response and Task 2 required a left/right foot response. The BCE manifests in shorter Task 1 RTs if both responses are given on the same side (compatible) compared to when they are given on different sides (incompatible). Data were analyzed by Analyses of Variance and diffusion modeling., Results: Both age groups clearly exhibited a BCE, and the BCEs were of the same size. Further, for both age groups, the size of the BCE was similarly modulated by the previous trial's compatibility status. Diffusion model analyses attribute the BCE to an increased drift rate in compatible compared to incompatible trials, and also revealed no age group differences in any of the analyzed parameters., Conclusion: The results point to an aspect of cognition that seems not to show age-related deteriorations, similar to, for example, n-2 repetition costs in task-switching situations. Certain response selection-related aspects of task processing are processed in parallel to the same degree in younger and older adults, and both age groups are similarly able to shield Task 1 processing from interfering Task 2 processing in a dual-task situation.

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).)

Doing two things at once is hard, and it is probably hard for various reasons. Here we aim to demonstrate that one so far barely considered reason is the monitoring of sensory action feedback, which detracts from processing of other concurrent tasks. To demonstrate this, we engaged participants in a psychological refractory period paradigm. The responses in the two tasks produced visual action effects. These effects occurred either immediately or they were delayed for the first of the two responses. We assumed that delaying these effects would engage a process of monitoring visual feedback longer, and delay a concurrent task more, as compared to immediate effects. This prediction was confirmed in two experiments. We discuss the reasons for feedback monitoring and its possible contribution to dual tasking.

Successful completion of any cognitive task requires selecting a particular action and the object the action is applied to. Oberauer (2009) suggested a working memory (WM) model comprising a declarative and a procedural part with analogous structures. One important assumption of this model is that both parts work independently of each other, and previous work has indeed reported evidence for the independent selection of memory lists and tasks, for example. The present study focused on the selection of single items in declarative and single responses in procedural WM. To this end, WM updating tasks were implemented as Task 2 in a Psychological Refractory Period setup in 3 experiments. The prediction based on the locus of slack logic is that item switch costs are present with a long but not with a short stimulus onset asynchrony. Contrary to this prediction, item switch costs were neither absent nor at least smaller at the short stimulus onset asynchrony. These results help to further constrain the WM model and thus to refine its computational implementation. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

According to the ideomotor principle, behavior is controlled via a retrieval of the sensory consequences that will follow from the respective movement ("action-effects"). These consequences include not only what will happen, but also when something will happen. In fact, recollecting the temporal duration between response and effect takes time and prolongs the initiation of the response. We investigated the associative structure of action-effect learning with delayed effects and asked whether participants acquire integrated action-time-effect episodes that comprise a compound of all three elements or whether they acquire separate traces that connect actions to the time until an effect occurs and actions to the effects that follow them. In three experiments, results showed that participants retrieve temporal intervals that follow from their actions even when the identity of the effect could not be learned. Furthermore, retrieval of temporal intervals in isolation was not inferior to retrieval of temporal intervals that were consistently followed by predictable action-effects. More specifically, when tested under extinction, retrieval of action-time and action-identity associations seems to compete against each other, similar to overshadowing effects reported for stimulus-response conditioning. Together, these results suggest that people anticipate when the consequences of their action will occur, independently from what the consequences will be.

In dual-tasks, characteristics of Task 2 responses can already affect performance in the preceding Task 1. This is called the backward crosstalk effect (BCE). To account for the BCE, it has been suggested that the appearance of the Task 2 stimulus automatically projects activation onto the corresponding response through (transient or direct) stimulus-response (S-R) links. One way to investigate this claim is to compare the size of the BCE for tasks where S-R links are differently strong. To this end, we here compared BCEs for forced- vs. free-choice tasks, with the S-R links assumed to be stronger in the former than in the latter task. In Experiments 1 and 2, Task 1 was either forced-choice or free-choice and Task 2 always forced-choice, and in Experiment 3 this order was reversed. A BCE was observed in all experiments with the forced-choice tasks, but in response times it was smaller in Experiments 1 and 2 and absent in Experiment 3 with the free-choice task. However, in free-choice Task 1 responses, a bias towards selecting the response required in Task 2 was observed. These results suggest that the strength of S-R links plays a role in determining the size of the BCE. Relations to other studies and alternative explanations are discussed., (Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

In line with ideomotor theory, numerous response-effect compatibility (REC) studies have revealed evidence that action effects are anticipated prior to action initiation, as indicated by an REC effect: For example, a response is given faster when its effect occurs on the same rather than on the opposite side. So far, REC studies have only investigated immediate effects-that is, effects occurring immediately after the response is given. However, it may be argued that in everyday life many actions cause effects that do not occur immediately. Additionally, because actions can have more than one effect, desired effects occurring in the future may only be arrived at if fundamental effects are achieved first. In the present study, we investigated whether temporally more distal effects are anticipated in order to initiate actions, and how multiple, serially occurring effects are represented. To this end, a spatial REC paradigm was extended in such a way that a first, immediate effect (i.e., immediately following the response; E1) was followed 500 ms later by another visual effect (E2). An REC effect was only observed for the temporally more distal E2, and this result suggests that temporally more distal effects can also be anticipated during action selection.

When two tasks are combined in a dual-task experiment, characteristics of Task 2 can influence Task 1 performance, a phenomenon termed the backward crosstalk effect (BCE). Besides instances depending on the (spatial) compatibility of both responses, a particularly interesting example was introduced by Miller (2006): If Task 2 was a no-go task (i.e., one not requiring any action at all), responses were slowed in Task 1. Subsequent work, however, also reported the opposite result-that is, faster Task 1 responses in cases of no-go Task 2 trials. We report three experiments aiming to more precisely identify the conditions under which a no-go Task 2 facilitates or impedes Task 1 performance. The results suggest that an adverse no-go BCE is only observed when the Task 2 response(s) are sufficiently prepared in advance, yielding strong inhibitory control demands for Task 2 that eventually hamper Task 1 processing as well (i.e., inhibitory costs). If this is not the case, encountering a no-go Task 2 trial facilitates Task 1 performance, suggesting that the underlying task representation is reduced to a single - task. These results are discussed in the context of other recent work on BCEs and of recently suggested accounts of the no-go BCE.

In dual-task settings, one can find influences from Task 2 processing even on Task 1 performance, an effect referred to as the backward crosstalk effect (BCE). The size of the BCE has been taken as an index of how well Task 1 processing can be shielded against concurrently ongoing Task 2 processes. In the current study, we compared the size of the BCE between adults and a group of 5- and 6-year-old children. First, the BCE turned out to be larger in children than in adults. Second, both groups exhibited a comparable adjustment of behavior in response to just experienced conflict; in both groups, the BCE was smaller following conflict trials than following no-conflict trials. Third, a diffusion model analysis suggests that the source for the BCE is different in adults than in children. In particular, not parallel Task 2 response activation appears to be the source of the BCE in children. Rather, non-decisional processes appear to be responsible for the BCE in this age group. Thus, this study shows that (a) 5- and 6-year-old children can perform dual-tasks, but (b) they show slightly larger signs of between-task crosstalk, and (c) the exact reasons for this appear to be different from those responsible in adults., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

According to theoretical accounts of cognitive control, conflict between competing responses is monitored and triggers post conflict behavioural adjustments. Some models proposed that conflict is detected as an affective signal. While the conflict monitoring theory assumed that conflict is registered as a negative valence signal, the adaptation by binding model hypothesized that conflict provides a high arousal signal. The present research induced phasic affect in a Simon task with presentations of pleasant and unpleasant pictures that were high or low in arousal. If conflict is registered as an affective signal, the presentation of a corresponding affective signal should potentiate post conflict adjustments. Results did not support the hypothesis, and Bayesian analyses corroborated the conclusion that phasic affects do not influence post conflict behavioural adjustments in the Simon task., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The social inhibition of return (sIOR) effect refers to the finding that response initiation times are longer if a movement is executed to a location where another person has responded to just before. Previous studies have examined the influence of the goal of the action on sIOR. In these studies, however, the movement endpoint and to-be-attained goal (e.g., touching/pressing a response key) were at the same spatial location. In the present two experiments, we disentangled movement endpoint and goal's identity and locations by means of introducing action effects that followed directly from a movement. Similar methods were previously shown powerful enough to clearly show the importance of action goals for other phenomena-a finding consistent with effect-based theories of action control, such as the ideomotor theory. The results of the present study revealed that sIOR was shaped by the movement endpoint location, not the goal's identity or location. That is, in both experiments, an sIOR effect was observed, but the magnitude of the sIOR effect was not modulated by repetitions/switches of goals or their locations. Thus, results indicate that goals play a negligible role in the emergence of the sIOR and, consequently, highlight the importance of action observation for the emergence of the sIOR effect.

According to the Perception-Action-Model (PAM), the human visual cortex consists of the ventral vision-for-perception and the dorsal vision-for-action streams. Performance decrements with increasing variation of nominally task-irrelevant stimulus features (Garner-Interference) was suggested as an empirical tool for identifying contributions of these streams: vision-for-perception, but not visionfor-action, should suffer from Garner-Interference, but inconsistencies in this argument were revealed by several studies. We here used a new manipulation to induce Garner-Interference in a dorsal task: The stimulus objects did not differ in their lengths but in the side to which they were weighted. In Experiment 1, Garner-Interference was found in a ventral perceptual judgment task. Notably, we did also find Garner-Interference in skilled right-handed grasping in Experiment 2. These findings suggest that the presence or absence of Garner-Interference does not consistently index the contribution of different processing streams for perception and action, but the coprocessing of nominally task-irrelevant stimulus features in general, be it for perception of action.

The impact of masked stimulation on cognitive control processes is investigated with much interest. In many cases, masked stimulation suffices to initiate and employ control processes. Shifts of attention either happen in the external environment or internally, for example, in working memory. In the former, even masked cues (i.e., cues that are presented for a period too short to allow strategic use) were shown efficient for shifting attention to particular locations in pre-cue paradigms. Internal attention shifting can be investigated using retro-cues: long after encoding, a valid cue indicates the location to-be-tested via change detection, and this improves performance (retro-cue effect). In the present experiment, participants performed in both a pre- and a retro-cue task with masked and normally presented cues. While the masked cues benefitted performance in the pre-cue task, they did not in the retro-cue task. These results inform about limits of masked stimulation., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. 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).)

Studies with the retro-cue paradigm have shown that validly cueing objects in visual working memory long after encoding can still benefit performance on subsequent change detection tasks. With regard to the effects of invalid cues, the literature is less clear. Some studies reported costs, others did not. We here revisit two recent studies that made interesting suggestions concerning invalid retro-cues: One study suggested that costs only occur for larger set sizes, and another study suggested that inclusion of invalid retro-cues diminishes the retro-cue benefit. New data from one experiment and a reanalysis of published data are provided to address these conclusions. The new data clearly show costs (and benefits) that were independent of set size, and the reanalysis suggests no influence of the inclusion of invalid retro-cues on the retro-cue benefit. Thus, previous interpretations may be taken with some caution at present.

Ample evidence suggests that motor actions are generated by mentally recollecting their sensory consequences, i.e., via effect anticipations. There is less evidence, though, on the capacity limitations that such effect anticipations suffer from. In the present paper we aim to overcome shortcomings of previous research on this issue by extending the set of empirical indicators of effect anticipations and by using trial-wise instead of block-wise manipulations. In four experiments using the locus of slack- and the effect propagation-logic, we found conclusive evidence for effect anticipation taking place in the capacity-limited central bottleneck. These findings extend previous research suggesting an overlap of a "response selection" process as assumed in traditional stage theory and effect anticipation processes as assumed in effect-based ideomotor models of action control., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The Perception-Action Model (PAM) claims to provide a coherent interpretation of data from all areas of the visual neurosciences, most notably data from neuropsychological patients and from behavioral experiments in healthy people. Here, we tested two claims that are part of the core version of the PAM: (a) certain actions (natural, highly practiced, and right-handed) are controlled by the dorsal vision for action pathway, while other actions (awkward, unpracticed, or left-handed) are controlled by the ventral vision for perception pathway. (b) Only the dorsal pathway operates in an analytical fashion, being able to selectively focus on the task-relevant dimension of an object (Ganel and Goodale, Nature 426(6967):664-667, 2003). We show that one of these claims must be wrong: using the same test for analytical processing as Ganel and Goodale (2003), we found that even an action that should clearly be ventral (left-handed awkward grasping) shows analytical processing just as a dorsal task does (right-handed natural precision grasping). These results are at odds with the PAM and point to an inconsistency of the model.

Humans appear to act in response to environmental demands or to pursue self-chosen goals. In the laboratory, these situations are often investigated with forced- and free-choice tasks: in forced-choice tasks, a stimulus determines the one correct response, while in free-choice tasks the participants choose between response alternatives. We compared these two tasks regarding their susceptibility to dual-task interference when the concurrent task was always forced-choice. If, as was suggested in the literature, both tasks require different "action control systems," larger dual-task costs for free-choice tasks than for forced-choice tasks should emerge in our experiments, due to a time-costly switch between the systems. In addition, forced-choice tasks have been conceived as "prepared reflexes" for which all intentional processing is said to take place already prior to stimulus onset giving rise to automatic response initiation upon stimulus onset. We report three experiments with different implementations of the forced- vs. free-choice manipulation. In all experiments we replicated slower responses in the free- than in the forced-choice task and the typical dual-task costs. These latter costs, however, were equivalent for forced- and free-choice tasks. These results are easier to reconcile with the assumption of one unitary "action control system."

The response-effect compatibility (REC) paradigm provides an elegant tool for studying the impact of anticipated action effects on action control. Converging evidence for such anticipative processes has mainly emerged from tasks that require simple, discrete actions, whereas tasks that require more complex, continuous actions such as wheel-rotation responses have yielded discrepant results. We investigate the role of two moderating variables that have only played a minor role in effect-based theories of human action control and may account for this discrepancy: (1) the degree of dimensional overlap (rather than its mere presence) and (2) directing attention towards the action effects. The results of three experiments suggest that both factors are crucial in determining the size of REC effects for continuous wheel-rotation responses: Reliable REC effects were obtained, and they were larger with high than with low dimensional overlap and when attending to the effects than when not. Thus, the study points toward important preconditions that determine whether and how effect anticipations affect complex motor actions.

Choosing among different options is costly. Typically, response times are slower if participants can choose between several alternatives (free-choice) compared to when a stimulus determines a single correct response (forced-choice). This performance difference is commonly attributed to additional cognitive processing in free-choice tasks, which require time-consuming decisions between response options. Alternatively, the forced-choice advantage might result from facilitated perceptual processing, a prediction derived from the framework of implementation intentions. This hypothesis was tested in three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 were PRP experiments and showed the expected underadditive interaction of the SOA manipulation and task type, pointing to a pre-central perceptual origin of the performance difference. Using the additive-factors logic, Experiment 3 further supported this view. We discuss the findings in the light of alternative accounts and offer potential mechanisms underlying performance differences in forced- and free-choice tasks.

What we intend to achieve with our actions affects the way we move our body. This has been repeatedly shown for both, movement-related intentions such as grasping and turning an object, and relatively high-level intentions such as the intention to collaborate or to compete with a social partner. The impact of an intermediate level of intentions - referring to action-contingent changes in the physical environment - is far less clear, however. We present three experiments that aim at scrutinizing this level of analysis by showing how such anticipated consequences affect movement trajectories. Participants steered a virtual avatar toward portals that displaced the avatar to a different but predictable location. Even though this displacement occurred only after the movement was completed, hand movements were clearly torn toward the anticipated final location of the avatar. These results show that properties of anticipated action consequences leave a fingerprint on movement trajectories and provide an opportunity to unite previous accounts on the relation of intentions and movements with general frameworks of action planning., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Stimuli that are clearly positive or negative (hence valence-laden stimuli) have the potential to interrupt unrelated task processing. A typical example is the emotional Stroop effect (ESE) in which responding to a certain task feature (e.g., color) is delayed by the presentation of task-irrelevant valent stimuli (e.g., negative pictures) compared to valence-neutral stimuli. Here we scrutinize which processes are slowed down by irrelevant but valent stimulation. In Experiment 1, participants performed in a Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) experiment with tone discrimination as Task 1 and color discrimination as Task 2. Importantly, colors in Task 2 were accompanied by valent or neutral pictures. Valent pictures delayed responding in Task 2 (thus an ESE) and this delay was additive to the time interval between tasks. In Experiment 2, task order was reversed and the ESE in Task 1 fully propagated to the Task 2 tone discrimination. These results imply that irrelevant valence-laden stimulation delays capacity-limited processes, and we suggest that this is a late perceptual process acting on stimulus categorization., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Responses in the second of two subsequently performed tasks can speed up compatible responses in the temporally preceding first task. Such backward crosstalk effects (BCEs) represent a challenge to the assumption of serial processing in stage models of human information processing, because they indicate that certain features of the second response have to be represented before the first response is emitted. Which of these features are actually relevant for BCEs is an open question, even though identifying these features is important for understanding the nature of parallel and serial response selection processes in dual-task performance. Motivated by effect-based models of action control, we show in three experiments that the BCE to a considerable degree reflects features of intended action effects, although features of the response proper (or response-associated kinesthetic feedback) also seem to play a role. These findings suggest that the codes of action effects (or action goals) can become activated simultaneously rather than serially, thereby creating BCEs., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Which motor actions are preferred to replace an initially planned but momentary not executable action? Previous research (Khan, Mourton, Buckolz, Adams, & Hayes, 2010, Acta Psychologica) suggests that anatomical constraints seem to be a major determinant for such choices: For example, participants more frequently chose to respond with the finger homologous to the prepared one. We argue that in this case finger homology is confounded with action effect similarity, and action effects have been ascribed a crucial role in action selection. We report two experiments. Experiment 1 replicated the results obtained by Khan et al. In Experiment 2, we introduced visual action effects in the paradigm. Results from this experiment clearly point to a role of effect similarity in addition to mere finger homology status for the choice frequency effect., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Psychological research has documented again and again marked performance decrements whenever humans perform 2 or more tasks at the same time. In fact, the available evidence seems to suggest that any type of behavior is subject to such limitations. The present experiments employed the psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm to identify a clear exception to this rule: Unconditioned reflexes do escape dual-task interference, whereas intended simple responses, so called "prepared reflexes," do not. Beyond this empirical novelty, we discuss the findings in broader terms of human action control. In particular, we suggest that the (non)susceptibility to dual-task interference may provide a clear empirical delineation between goal-directed behavior (i.e., actions) and other, not goal-directed behavior., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.)

The retro-cue effect (RCE) describes superior working memory performance for validly cued stimulus locations long after encoding has ended. Importantly, this happens with delays beyond the range of iconic memory. In general, the RCE is a stable phenomenon that emerges under varied stimulus configurations and timing parameters. We investigated its susceptibility to dual-task interference to determine the attentional requirements at the time point of cue onset and encoding. In Experiment 1, we compared single- with dual-task conditions. In Experiment 2, we borrowed from the psychological refractory period paradigm and compared conditions with high and low (dual-) task overlap. The secondary task was always binary tone discrimination requiring a manual response. Across both experiments, an RCE was found, but it was diminished in magnitude in the critical dual-task conditions. A previous study did not find evidence that sustained attention is required in the interval between cue offset and test. Our results apparently contradict these findings and point to a critical time period around cue onset and briefly thereafter during which attention is required.

Previous research suggests that motor actions are intentionally generated by recollecting their sensory consequences. Whereas this has been shown to apply to visual or auditory consequences in the environment, surprisingly little is known about the contribution of immediate, body-related consequences, such as proprioceptive and tactile reafferences. Here, we report evidence for a contribution of vibrotactile reafferences to action selection by using a response-effect compatibility paradigm. More precisely, anticipating actions to cause spatially incompatible vibrations delayed responding to a small but reliable degree. Whereas this observation suggests functional equivalence of body-related and environment-related reafferences to action control, the future application of the described experimental procedure might reveal functional peculiarities of specific types of sensory consequences in action control.

Humans make numerous choices every day and tend to perceive these choices as free. The present study shows how simple free choices are biased by experiencing unrelated auditory information. In two experiments, participants categorized tones according to their intensity on the dimensions volume and duration on the majority of trials. On some trials, however, they were to randomly generate a number, and we found these choices to be influenced by tone intensity. Particularly, if participants were cued toward volume, loud tones clearly biased participants to generate larger numbers. For tone duration, a similar effect only emerged if spatial information was reinforced by the motor context of the task. The findings extend previous findings relating to the ATOM framework (A Theory of Magnitude) by an explicit focus on auditory magnitude processing. As such, they also constrain ATOM by showing that the connections between different magnitude dimensions vary to a considerable degree., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In many situations people need to mentally adopt the (spatial) perspective of other persons, an ability that is referred to as "Level 2 perspective taking." Its underlying processes have been ascribed to mental self-rotation that can be dissociated from mental object-rotation. Recent findings suggest that perspective taking/self-rotation may not require central capacity. By using the psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm and the locus-of-slack logic, the present study scrutinized these results, ruled out alternative explanations, and extended the conclusions. In sum, the findings converge on the notion that Level 2 perspective taking entails 2 processes: a first effortless process that handles rotations of 60° or less, and a second capacity-limited process of mental self-rotation proper that is only invoked at higher degrees of required perspective taking., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.)

Human-Computer Interactions pose special demands on the motor system, especially regarding the virtual tool transformations underlying typical mouse movements. We investigated whether such virtual tool-transformed movements are similarly resistant to irrelevant variation of a target object as skilled natural movements are. Results show that such irrelevant information deteriorates performance in perceptual tasks, whereas movement parameters remain unaffected, suggesting that the control of virtual tools draws on the same mechanisms as natural actions do. The results are discussed in terms of their practical utility and recent findings investigating unskilled and transformed movements in the framework of the action/perception model and the integration of tools into the body schema.

Valued by statisticians, enforced by editors, and confused by many authors, standard errors (SEs) and confidence intervals (CIs) remain a controversial issue in the psychological literature. This is especially true for the proper use of CIs for within-subjects designs, even though several recent publications elaborated on possible solutions for this case. The present paper presents a short and straightforward introduction to the basic principles of CI construction, in an attempt to encourage students and researchers in cognitive psychology to use CIs in their reports and presentations. Focusing on a simple but prevalent case of statistical inference, the comparison of two sample means, we describe possible CIs for between- and within-subjects designs. In addition, we give hands-on examples of how to compute these CIs and discuss their relation to classical t-tests.

Flexible behavior is only possible if contingencies between own actions and following environmental effects are acquired as quickly as possible; and recent findings indeed point toward an immediate formation of action-effect bindings already after a single coupling of an action and its effect. The present study explored whether these short-term bindings occur for both, stimulus- and goal-driven actions ("forced-choice actions" vs. "free-choice actions"). Two experiments confirmed that immediate action-effect bindings are formed for both types of actions and affect upcoming behavior. These findings support the view that action-effect binding is a ubiquitous phenomenon which occurs for any type of action.