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Objectives: The interdisciplinary follow-up program of hearing impaired children at the Comprehensive Hearing Center, Würzburg University Hospitals includes regular evaluation of children's general and cognitive development. Intelligence is evaluated at the intervals of the 24th and 48th month after first fitting. In this study, we investigate: 1. Cross-sectional comparison of cognitive/intelligence abilities between children with cochlear implantation (CI) and with hearing aids (HA). 2. Longitudinal evaluation of verbal and nonverbal (performance) Intelligence in CI children and HA children. Material and methods: 20 CI children and 23 HA children were evaluated at both intervals, using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence Third Version (WPPSI-III) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Fourth Version (WISC-IV) depending on children's chronological age. The tests calculate different indexes (Intelligence quotients, IQ) for verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory and processing speed. The two times' evaluation data were analyzed in the present study. Significant was set as p<0.05. Results: 1. Study population: Up to September 2019, there were 20 CI children and 23 HA children who had two time evaluations. The average chronological age (years) at the first and second test in years for CI Children was 5.61 (SD=1.48) and 8.26 (SD=1.80) and for HA Children was 5.45 (SD=1.85) and 7.63 (SD=1.89). The hearing age (years), effective usage of CI/HA, at first and second test: CI children were 2.22 (SD=1.53) and 4.86 (SD=1.58) and HA children were 1.28 (SD=1.15) and 3.51 (SD=1.19). There was no significant difference in children's age between two groups at both evaluation times. 2. Comparisons between CI and HA children at both intervals: At 24th months evaluation, there was no significant differences according to group means of (1) verbal IQ in CI children (mean=98.40, SD=13.79) and HA children (mean=100.45, SD=16.68), t=0.39, p=0.70; and (2) nonverbal IQ in CI children (mean=102.42, SD=16.11) and HA (mean=105.68, SD=16.89), t=0.61, p=0.55. The same outcome was observed at 48 months evaluation: (1) verbal IQ in CI children (mean=108.35, SD=23.00) and HA children (mean=110.18, SD=16.97), t=0.29, p=0.78; (2) nonverbal IQ CI (mean=108.95; SD=15.08) and HA children (mean=105.87, SD=17.76), t=0.61, p=0.55. 3. Longitudinal evaluation of cognitive development: Using repeated measurement analysis, in CI children, there was a significant difference in verbal IQ and non-verbal IQ between first and second evaluation (F(1,13)=23.13, p=0.00). Both sub-IQ at the second time was better than at first evaluation. There was a significant interaction effect between test time and components of intelligence (F=6.46, p=0.03). This indicated an accelerated positive development of CI children in verbal performances. In HA children there was no significant difference between two tests neither in verbal IQ nor in nonverbal IQ (F(1,17)=3.09, p=0.10). Also, there was no significant difference between verbal and nonverbal IQ in both tests (F(1,17)=0.00, p=0.97). Conclusions: 1. Cross-sectional comparison between CI and HA children: There is no significant difference in verbal and nonverbal IQ between CI and HA children neither in 24th months nor in the 48th months after intervention. 2. CI children's longitudinal intelligence performances, especially ability in verbal comprehension, continue accelerated after intervention. But this trend did not show in HA children. 3. In early evaluation, CI children's verbal IQ was significantly worse than nonverbal IQ but the difference disappeared over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent multiple action control studies have demonstrated difficulties with single-action (vs. dual-action) execution when accompanied by the requirement to inhibit a prepotent additional response (e.g., a highly automatic eye movement). Such a dual-action performance benefit is typically characterized by frequent false-positive executions of the currently unwarranted response. Here, we investigated whether the frequency of false-positive saccades is affected by the ease of translating a stimulus into a spatial oculomotor response (S-R translation ease): Is it harder to inhibit a saccade that is more automatically triggered via the stimulus? Participants switched on a trial-by-trial basis between executing a single saccade, a single manual button press, and a saccadic-manual dual action in response to a single visual stimulus. Importantly, we employed three different stimulus modes that varied in oculomotor S-R translation ease (peripheral square > central arrow > central shape). The hierarchy of S-R translation ease was reflected by increasing saccade and manual reaction times. Critically, however, the frequency of false-positive saccades in single manual trials was not substantially affected by the stimulus mode. Our results rule out explanations related to limited capacity sharing (between inhibitory control and S-R translation demands) as well as accounts related to the time available for the completion of saccade inhibition. Instead, the findings suggest that the erroneous co-activation of the oculomotor system was elicited by the mere execution of a (frequently associated) manual response (action-based co-activation)., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

In this paper, we tested the idea that local changes in action demands (e.g., due to an invalid cue or trial-by-trial) result in frugal modifications of existing action plans via action-plan-modification operations. We implemented an experimental procedure making use of a cue that indicates the action requirements for an upcoming signal with a certain degree of reliability. Crucially, incongruent cue-stimulus pairs either require action-plan modification or "resetting" the prepared action plan and reselecting a new response from scratch. We systematically varied the proportion of valid cues over four experiments. There were four most basic response conditions: left button press, right button press, dual button presses, no action. Results support the concept of action-plan modification rather than reset-reselect: switching between a left and a right response was faster and less error-prone than any other type of switch, both between trials and between cue and signal. Thus, it appears that given two responses that can be conceived of as polar opposites (within the same single-action category), there is an action-plan-modification operation ("invert") that transforms one into the other at a comparatively low cost. Furthermore, we observed a mixed pattern of dual-action costs and benefits. This indicates that participants represented dual actions holistically, that is, not based on a conjunction of single-action plans as building blocks. In addition, switching from null actions to overt actions appeared to require very similar action-plan-modification operations as other types of switches - thus, null actions are apparently not coded as empty sets, but rather represent actions in their own right. Finally, we observed strikingly similar patterns of results for trial-by-trial changes in action demands and intra-trial cue-signal incongruency. This implies that the mere cue-based formulation of an action plan - which is not actually executed - is sufficient to produce action-switching-like effects., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In dual-task situations, both component tasks are typically not executed simultaneously but rather one after another. Task order is usually determined based on bottom-up information provided by stimulus presentation order, but also affected by top-down factors such as instructions and/or differentially dominant component tasks (e.g., oculomotor task prioritization). Recent research demonstrated that in the context of a randomly switching stimulus order, task order representations can be integrated with specific component task information rather than being coded in a purely abstract fashion (i.e., by containing only generic order information). This conclusion was derived from observing consistently smaller task-order switch costs for a preferred (e.g., oculomotor-manual) versus a non-preferred (e.g., manual-oculomotor) task order (i.e., order-switch cost asymmetries). Since such a representational format might have been especially promoted by the sequential stimulus presentation employed, we investigated task-order representations in situations without any bottom-up influence of stimulus order. To this end, we presented task stimuli simultaneously and cued the required task-order in advance. Experiment 1 employed abstract order transition cues that only indicated a task-order repetition (vs. switch) relative to the previous trial, while Experiment 2 used explicit cues that unambiguously indicated the task-order. Experiment 1 revealed significant task-order switch costs only for the second task (of either task order) and no order-switch cost asymmetries, indicating a rather generic representation of task order. Experiment 2 revealed task-order switch costs in both component tasks with a trend toward order-switch cost asymmetries, indicating an integration of task order representations with component task information. These findings highlight an astonishing flexibility of mental task-order representations during task-order control., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Performing two actions at the same time usually results in performance costs. However, recent studies have also reported dual-action benefits: performing only one of two possible actions may necessitate the inhibition of the initially activated, but unwarranted second action, leading to single-action costs. Presumably, two preconditions determine the occurrence and strength of such inhibition-based dual-action benefits: (a) response set reductivity and (b) action prepotency. A nonreductive response set (given when all possible responses have to be kept in working memory) creates inhibitory action control demands in single-, but not in dual-action trials, and the ensuing inhibitory costs are proportional to the level of action prepotency (i.e., an action that is easy to initiate is hard to inhibit). Here, we set out to test this hypothesis by varying representational characteristics in working memory (namely response set reductivity and action prepotency) across four experiments. In Experiments 1 to 3, we compared (a) a randomized mode of trial presentation to (b) intermixed, but predictable fixed sequences of trial types and (c) a completely blocked mode of presentation. As expected, dual-action benefits were strongly present in Experiment 1, significantly reduced in Experiment 2, and absent in Experiment 3. This pattern of results matches our predictions derived from the assumption that differential inhibitory costs in single-action trials are the root cause of dual-action benefits. Crucially, however, the results of Experiment 4 (in which response conditions were only partially blocked) pointed to a secondary source of dual-action benefits that was inseparable from inhibition-based effects in previous experimental designs: semantic redundancy gains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This study investigates the sense of agency (SoA) for saccades with implicit and explicit agency measures. In two eye tracking experiments, participants moved their eyes towards on-screen stimuli that subsequently changed color. Participants then either reproduced the temporal interval between saccade and color-change (Experiment 1) or reported the time points of these events with an auditory Libet clock (Experiment 2) to measure temporal binding effects as implicit indices of SoA. Participants were either made to believe to exert control over the color change or not (agency manipulation). Explicit ratings indicated that the manipulation of causal beliefs and hence agency was successful. However, temporal binding was only evident for caused effects, and only when a sufficiently sensitive procedure was used (auditory Libet clock). This suggests a feebler connection between temporal binding and SoA than previously proposed. The results also provide evidence for a relatively fast acquisition of sense of agency for previously never experienced types of action-effect associations. This indicates that the underlying processes of action control may be rooted in more intricate and adaptable cognitive models than previously thought. Oculomotor SoA as addressed in the present study presumably represents an important cognitive foundation of gaze-based social interaction (social sense of agency) or gaze-based human-machine interaction scenarios. PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: In this study, sense of agency for eye movements in the non-social domain is investigated in detail, using both explicit and implicit measures. Therefore, it offers novel and specific insights into comprehending sense of agency concerning effects induced by eye movements, as well as broader insights into agency pertaining to entirely newly acquired types of action-effect associations. Oculomotor sense of agency presumably represents an important cognitive foundation of gaze-based social interaction (social agency) or gaze-based human-machine interaction scenarios. Due to peculiarities of the oculomotor domain such as the varying degree of volitional control, eye movements could provide new information regarding more general theories of sense of agency in future research., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest We have no known conflict of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Interpreting gaze behavior is essential in evaluating interaction partners, yet the 'semantics of gaze' in dynamic interactions are still poorly understood. We aimed to comprehensively investigate effects of gaze behavior patterns in different conversation contexts, using a two-step, qualitative-quantitative procedure. Participants watched video clips of single persons listening to autobiographic narrations by another (invisible) person. The listener's gaze behavior was manipulated in terms of gaze direction, frequency and direction of gaze shifts, and blink frequency; emotional context was manipulated through the valence of the narration (neutral/negative). In Experiment 1 (qualitative-exploratory), participants freely described which states and traits they attributed to the listener in each condition, allowing us to identify relevant aspects of person perception and to construct distinct rating scales that were implemented in Experiment 2 (quantitative-confirmatory). Results revealed systematic and differential meanings ascribed to the listener's gaze behavior. For example, rapid blinking and fast gaze shifts were rated more negatively (e.g., restless and unnatural) than slower gaze behavior; downward gaze was evaluated more favorably (e.g., empathetic) than other gaze aversion types, especially in the emotionally negative context. Overall, our study contributes to a more systematic understanding of flexible gaze semantics in social interaction., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The question of how behavior is represented in the mind lies at the core of psychology as the science of mind and behavior. While a long-standing research tradition has established two opposing fundamental views of perceptual representation, Structuralism and Gestalt psychology, we test both accounts with respect to action representation: Are multiple actions (characterizing human behavior in general) represented as the sum of their component actions (Structuralist view) or holistically (Gestalt view)? Using a single-/dual-response switch paradigm, we analyzed switches between dual ([A + B]) and single ([A], [B]) responses across different effector systems and revealed comparable performance in partial repetitions and full switches of behavioral requirements (e.g., in [A + B] → [A] vs. [B] → [A], or [A] → [A + B] vs. [B] → [A + B]), but only when the presence of dimensional overlap between responses allows for Gestalt formation. This evidence for a Gestalt view of behavior in our paradigm challenges some fundamental assumptions in current (tacitly Structuralist) action control theories (in particular the idea that all actions are represented compositionally with reference to their components), provides a novel explanatory angle for understanding complex, highly synchronized human behavior (e.g., dance), and delimitates the degree to which complex behavior can be analyzed in terms of its basic components., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

While performing two actions at the same time has mostly been associated with reduced performance, several recent studies have observed the opposite effect, that is, dual-action benefits . Previous evidence suggests that dual-action benefits result from single-action inhibitory costs - more specifically, it appears that under certain circumstances, single-action representations are derived from dual-action representations by removing (i.e., inhibiting) one of the component actions. In the present paper, we investigated if this is tied to the presence of multi-modal response demands (i.e., responses making use of two different effector systems). We implemented a very simple experimental paradigm where participants responded to a single stimulus with zero, one, or two uni -modal responses. As predicted, we did not observe dual-action benefits, but rather significant dual-action costs. Furthermore, a trial-by-trial sequence analysis revealed that alternations between both single-action responses were associated with significantly better performance than all other types of action switches. This can be accounted for by assuming that actions are represented as "feature bundles" and that switching a single, binary distinctive feature of an action to its opposite is relatively easy.

When a single action is required, along with the simultaneous inhibition of another action, this typically results in frequent false-positive executions of the latter (inhibition failures). The absence of inhibitory demands in dual-action trials can render performance less error-prone (and sometimes faster) than in single-action trials. In the present study, we investigated the temporal dynamics of inhibitory control difficulties by varying the preparation time (for simultaneous action execution and inhibition). In two experiments, participants responded to a single peripheral visual target either with an eye movement toward it (Single Saccade), with a spatially corresponding button press (Single Manual), or with both responses simultaneously (Dual Action) as indicated by a color cue. Preparation time was manipulated via the cue-stimulus interval within blocks (Experiment 1) and between blocks (Experiment 2). Overall, responses were faster with longer (vs. shorter) preparation time. Crucially, however, our results reveal the exact dynamics of how inhibition failures (and thus dual-action benefits) in both response modalities substantially decrease with longer preparation, even though the cue did not contain information regarding the fully specified response that needed to be inhibited (i.e., its direction). These results highlight the role of sufficient preparation time not only for efficient action execution but also for concurrent inhibitory performance. The study contradicts the idea that inhibition can only be exerted globally or on the level of a fully specified response. Instead, it may also be directed at effector system representations or all associated responses, suggesting a highly flexible targeting of inhibitory control in cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Sense of agency (SoA) is the feeling of having control over one's actions and their outcomes. Previous research claimed that SoA is reflected in "intentional binding" effects, that is, the subjective compression of time between a voluntary action and an intended outcome. Conventional paradigms, however, typically lack an isolated manipulation of different degrees of agency (or intentionality), as the presence or absence of actions (along with subsequent perceptual changes) represents a potential confound variable. Using a newly developed paradigm, we were able to replicate typical "intentional binding" results in an initial experiment in which such a confound was deliberately included. We then eliminated this confound in a follow-up experiment by keeping the presence of actions and perceptual changes constant between conditions with and without agency while only manipulating subjective SoA. Here, explicit ratings showed that participants indeed felt responsible for effects in the Agency condition but not in the Baseline condition (demonstrating the successful manipulation of SoA), while we no longer found any differences in "intentional binding" effects between conditions. This indicates that previously reported relations between intentional binding and SoA could be merely based on procedural confounds. In particular, temporal compression effects usually interpreted in terms of "intentional binding" may rather result from more basic temporal grouping mechanisms for any (perceptual and/or motor) events that are perceived as meaningfully belonging together (e.g., as parts of a trial episode). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

An important cognitive requirement in multitasking is the decision of how multiple tasks should be temporally scheduled (task order control). Specifically, task order switches (vs. repetitions) yield performance costs (i.e., task-order switch costs), suggesting that task order scheduling is a vital part of configuring a task set. Recently, it has been shown that this process takes specific task-related characteristics into account: task order switches were easier when switching to a preferred (vs. non-preferred) task order. Here, we ask whether another determinant of task order control, namely the phenomenon that a task order switch in a previous trial facilitates a task order switch in a current trial (i.e., a sequential modulation of task order switch effect) also takes task-specific characteristics into account. Based on three experiments involving task order switches between a preferred (dominant oculomotor task prior to non-dominant manual/pedal task) and a non-preferred (vice versa) order, we replicated the finding that task order switching (in Trial N) is facilitated after a previous switch (vs. repetition in Trial N - 1) in task order. There was no substantial evidence in favor of a significant difference when switching to the preferred vs. non-preferred order and in the analyses of the dominant oculomotor task and the non-dominant manual task. This indicates different mechanisms underlying the control of immediate task order configuration (indexed by task order switch costs) and the sequential modulation of these costs based on the task order transition type in the previous trial., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Previous research has shown that the simultaneous execution of two actions (instead of only one) is not necessarily more difficult but can actually be easier (less error-prone), in particular when executing one action requires the simultaneous inhibition of another action. Corresponding inhibitory demands are particularly challenging when the to-be-inhibited action is highly prepotent (i.e., characterized by a strong urge to be executed). Here, we study a range of important potential sources of such prepotency. Building on a previously established paradigm to elicit dual-action benefits, participants responded to stimuli with single actions (either manual button press or saccade) or dual actions (button press and saccade). Crucially, we compared blocks in which these response demands were randomly intermixed (mixed blocks) with pure blocks involving only one type of response demand. The results highlight the impact of global (action-inherent) sources of action prepotency, as reflected in more pronounced inhibitory failures in saccade vs. manual control, but also more local (transient) sources of influence, as reflected in a greater probability of inhibition failures following trials that required the to-be-inhibited type of action. In addition, sequential analyses revealed that inhibitory control (including its failure) is exerted at the level of response modality representations, not at the level of fully specified response representations. In sum, the study highlights important preconditions and mechanisms underlying the observation of dual-action benefits., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Objectives: Intelligence as a construct of cognitive abilities is the basis of knowledge and skill acquisition and the main predictor of academic achievement. As a broad construct, it is usually divided into subdomains, such as nonverbal and verbal intelligence. Verbal intelligence is one domain of intelligence but is not synonymous with specific linguistic abilities like grammar proficiency. We aim to address the general expectation that early cochlear implantation enables children who are hard of hearing to develop comprehensively, including with respect to verbal intelligence. The primary purpose of this study is to trace the longitudinal development of verbal and nonverbal intelligence in children with cochlear implants (CIs)., Design: Sixteen children with congenital hearing loss who received unilateral or bilateral implants and completed at least two intelligence assessments around the age of school entrance were included in the study. The first assessment was performed around 3 years after CI fitting (chronological age range: 3.93 to 7.03 years). The second assessment was performed approximately 2 years after the first assessment. To analyze verbal and nonverbal IQ in conjunction and across children at different ages, we used corresponding standardized and normalized tests from the same test family (Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence and/or Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children)., Results: Regarding longitudinal development, both verbal and nonverbal IQ increased, but verbal IQ increased more substantially over time. At the time of the second measurement, verbal and nonverbal IQ were on a comparable level. Nevertheless, we also observed strong inter-individual differences. The duration between both assessments was significantly associated with verbal IQ at the second measurement time point and thus with verbal IQ gain over time. Education mode (regular vs. special kindergarten/school) was significantly correlated with nonverbal IQ at the second assessment time point., Conclusions: The results, despite the small sample size, clearly suggest that children with CIs can achieve intellectual abilities comparable to those of their normal-hearing peers by around the third year after initial CI fitting, and they continue to improve over the following 2 years. We recommend further research focusing on verbal IQ assessed around the age of school entrance to be used as a predictor for further development and for the establishment of an individual educational program., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

When our actions yield predictable consequences in the environment, our eyes often already saccade towards the locations we expect these consequences to appear at. Such spontaneous anticipatory saccades occur based on bi-directional associations between action and effect formed by prior experience. That is, our eye movements are guided by expectations derived from prior learning history. Anticipatory saccades presumably reflect a proactive effect monitoring process that prepares a later comparison of expected and actual effect. Here, we examined whether anticipatory saccades emerged under forced choice conditions when only actions but not target stimuli were predictive of future effects and whether action mode (forced choice vs. free choice, i.e., stimulus-based vs. stimulus-independent choice) affected proactive effect monitoring. Participants produced predictable visual effects on the left/right side via forced choice and free choice left/right key presses. Action and visual effect were spatially compatible in one half of the experiment and spatially incompatible in the other half. Irrespective of whether effects were predicted by target stimuli in addition to participants' actions, in both action modes, we observed anticipatory saccades towards the location of future effects. Importantly, neither the frequency, nor latency or amplitude of these anticipatory saccades significantly differed between forced choice and free choice action modes. Overall, our findings suggest that proactive effect monitoring of future action consequences, as reflected in anticipatory saccades, is comparable between forced choice and free choice action modes., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

In task-switching studies, performance is typically worse in task-switch trials than in task-repetition trials. These switch costs are often asymmetrical, a phenomenon that has been explained by referring to a dominance of one task over the other. Previous studies also indicated that response modalities associated with two tasks may be considered as integral components for defining a task set. However, a systematic assessment of the role of response modalities in task switching is still lacking: Are some response modalities harder to switch to than others? The present study systematically examined switch costs when combining tasks that differ only with respect to their associated effector systems. In Experiment 1, 16 participants switched (in unpredictable sequence) between oculomotor and vocal tasks. In Experiment 2, 72 participants switched (in pairwise combinations) between oculomotor, vocal, and manual tasks. We observed systematic performance costs when switching between response modalities under otherwise constant task features and could thereby replicate previous observations of response modality switch costs. However, we did not observe any substantial switch-cost asymmetries. As previous studies using temporally overlapping dual-task paradigms found substantial prioritization effects (in terms of asymmetric costs) especially for oculomotor tasks, the present results suggest different underlying processes in sequential task switching than in simultaneous multitasking. While more research is needed to further substantiate a lack of response modality switch-cost asymmetries in a broader range of task switching situations, we suggest that task-set representations related to specific response modalities may exhibit rapid decay., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Here we present a systematic plan to the experimental study of test-retest reliability in the multitasking domain, adopting the multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) approach to evaluate the psychometric properties of performance in Düker-type speeded multiple-act mental arithmetic. These form of tasks capacitate the experimental analysis of integrated multi-step processing by combining multiple mental operations in flexible ways in the service of the overarching goal of completing the task. A particular focus was on scoring methodology, particularly measures of response speed variability. To this end, we present data of two experiments with regard to (a) test-retest reliability, (b) between-measures correlational structure, (c) and stability (test-retest practice effects). Finally, we compared participants with high versus low performance variability to assess ability-related differences in measurement precision (typically used as proxy to "simulate" patient populations), which is especially relevant in the applied fields of clinical neuropsychology. The participants performed two classic integrated multi-act arithmetic tasks, combining addition and verification (Exp. 1) and addition and comparison (Exp. 2). The results revealed excellent test-retest reliability for the standard and the variability measures. The analysis of between-measures correlational structure revealed the typical pattern of convergent and discriminant relationships, and also, that absolute response speed variability was highly correlated with average speed ( r > 0.85), indicating that these measures mainly deliver redundant information. In contrast, speed-adjusted (relativized) variability revealed discriminant validity being correlated to a much lesser degree with average speed, indicating that this measure delivers additional information not already provided by the speed measure. Furthermore, speed-adjusted variability was virtually unaffected by test-retest practice, which makes this measure interesting in situations with repeated testing., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Schumann, Steinborn, Flehmig, Kürten, Langner and Huestegge.)

Performing two actions at the same time usually hampers performance. Previous studies have demonstrated a strong impact of the particular effector systems on performance in multiple action control situations. However, an open question is whether performance is generally better or worse in situations in which two actions within the same effector system are coordinated (intra-modal actions: e.g., two pedal or two manual actions) compared to situations requiring two different effector systems (cross-modal actions: e.g., a manual combined with a vocal action). Performance differences can be predicated, among others, in the light of encapsulation accounts. Encapsulation of modules on the output side of processing would suggest that actions in two different modules can be triggered simultaneously without significant interference between the actions. Thus, cross-modal actions should lead to better performance compared to intra-modal actions. We investigated this issue in two basic experiments, in which participants responded to a single stimulus (thereby maximizing control over input and central processing stages) with one or two either intra-modal or cross-modal responses (manual-manual vs. manual-oculomotor/manual-vocal in Experiment 1/2, respectively). The results represent clear evidence for a performance advantage of intra-modal over cross-modal action control across both effector system combinations and independent of the particular spatial compatibility relation between responses. The results suggest performance benefits by taking advantage of integrated, holistic representations of intra-modal action compounds., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Childhood adversity has been suggested to affect the vulnerability for developmental psychopathology, including both externalizing and internalizing symptoms. This study examines spontaneous attention biases for negative and positive emotional facial expressions as potential intermediate phenotypes. In detail, typically developing boys (6-13 years) underwent an eye-tracking paradigm displaying happy, angry, sad and fearful faces. An approach bias towards positive emotional facial expressions with increasing childhood adversity levels was found. In addition, an attention bias away from negative facial expressions was observed with increasing childhood adversity levels, especially for sad facial expressions. The results might be interpreted in terms of emotional regulation strategies in boys at risk for reactive aggression and depressive behaviour., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Human attention is strongly attracted by direct gaze and sudden onset motion. The sudden direct-gaze effect refers to the processing advantage for targets appearing on peripheral faces that suddenly establish eye contact. Here, we investigate the necessity of social information for attention capture by (sudden onset) ostensive cues. Six experiments involving 204 participants applied (1) naturalistic faces, (2) arrows, (3) schematic eyes, (4) naturalistic eyes, or schematic facial configurations (5) without or (6) with head turn to an attention-capture paradigm. Trials started with two stimuli oriented towards the observer and two stimuli pointing into the periphery. Simultaneous to target presentation, one direct stimulus changed to averted and one averted stimulus changed to direct, yielding a 2 × 2 factorial design with direction and motion cues being absent or present. We replicated the (sudden) direct-gaze effect for photographic faces, but found no corresponding effects in Experiments 2-6. Hence, a holistic and socially meaningful facial context seems vital for attention capture by direct gaze. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: The present study highlights the significance of context information for social attention. Our findings demonstrate that the direct-gaze effect, that is, the prioritization of direct gaze over averted gaze, critically relies on the presentation of a meaningful holistic and naturalistic facial context. This pattern of results is evidence in favor of early effects of surrounding social information on attention capture by direct gaze., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

In situations requiring the execution of two tasks at around the same time, we need to decide which of the tasks should be executed first. Previous research has revealed several factors that affect the outcome of such response order control processes, including bottom-up factors (e.g., the temporal order of the stimuli associated with the two tasks) and top-down factors (e.g., instructions). In addition, it has been shown that tasks associated with certain response modalities are preferably executed first (e.g., temporal prioritisation of tasks involving oculomotor responses). In this study, we focused on a situation in which task order has to be unpredictably switched from trial to trial and asked whether task-order representations are coded separately or integrated with the component task sets (i.e., in a task-specific manner). Across three experiments, we combined two tasks known to differ in prioritisation, namely an oculomotor and a manual (or pedal) task. The results indicated robust task-order switch costs (i.e., longer RTs when task order was switched vs. repeated). Importantly, the data demonstrate that it is possible to show an asymmetry of task-order switch costs: While these costs were of similar size for both task orders in one particular experimental setting with specific spatial task characteristics, two experiments consistently indicated that it was easier for participants to switch to their prioritised task order (i.e., to execute the dominant oculomotor task first). This suggests that in a situation requiring frequent task-order switches (indicated by unpredictable changes in stimulus order), task order is represented in an integrated, task-specific manner, bound to characteristics (here, associated effector systems) of the component tasks.

Performing two actions at the same time (vs. in isolation) usually results in performance costs. However, recent studies have reported that it is also possible to observe dual-action benefits, a finding that challenges standard theories of multiple action control. This issue is typically resolved by assuming that under certain circumstances, performing only one of two possible actions-cognitively represented in terms of what to do-necessitates the costly stopping of the initially activated but unwarranted second action. Here, we test this hypothesis against an alternative inhibitory coding account which rests on the assumption that actions might be cognitively represented in terms of what not to do. Across four experiments, participants responded to a single stimulus with either single or dual responses in the manual and vocal domains, while the relative frequency of response types was systematically manipulated. The results revealed robust dual-action benefits in manual response times and error rates, and the pattern across experiments clearly supported the novel inhibitory coding framework. Crucially, this implies that even though the motor actions required for single and dual responses are physically the same, they are represented very differently. Specifically, dual responses can be represented holistically (noncompositionally). Overall, these findings demonstrate an astonishing flexibility in the mental representation of behavior demands. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study asks how behavioral (dual-action) demands in dual tasks are mentally represented and whether changes in representation might govern practice-related dual-task performance improvements. Three different representation accounts were empirically tested based on the idea that dual-action demands required in a dual-task trial might be represented in different ways. According to a compositional (Structuralist) account, component tasks remain structurally intact when combined with another task. In contrast, a holistic (Gestalt) account posits that dual-action requirements in dual tasks are represented holistically and entirely distinct from its component action requirements. Finally, a contextual change account assumes that a change in context (e.g., from single- to dual-action requirement) generally impedes response retrieval, similar to repeating a response while the task context switches. To address this issue, we analyzed trial-by-trial effects in a single/dual switch paradigm (SDS paradigm, involving a randomized mix of single- and dual-task trials within blocks). Specifically, we analyzed performance in an extensive dual-task training setting (involving training sessions across several days) combining an auditory-vocal task and a visual-manual task. The results indicated that, throughout practice, nearly all relevant comparisons of performance between complete switch trials (e.g., between the two single tasks) and partial repetition trials (e.g., from dual to single task) revealed partial repetition benefits, that is, for both the auditory-vocal and the visual-manual task, and for both single- and dual-task performance analyses. Therefore, dual-action requirements in the present dual-task setting are mentally represented in a compositional, Structuralist fashion, probably due to low between-task dimensional overlap., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Aim:  The present study was designed to investigate how behavioral (dual-action) demands in dual tasks are mentally represented in older adults and how these representations might contribute to the practice-related improvement of dual-task performance. Three different theoretical representation accounts were empirically tested: a structuralist account, a holistic account, and a contextual change account. The first account assumes that component tasks remain structurally intact when combined with another task while the second account assumes that dual-action requirements in dual tasks are represented holistically and entirely distinct from its component (single-action) requirements. The final account assumes that a change in context (e.g., from single to dual requirement) might generally impede response retrieval, similar to repeating a response when the task context switches. Methods:  To address this issue of dual-action representations in older adults, we assessed trial-by-trial effects in a single/dual switch paradigm (involving a randomized mix of single- and dual-task trials within blocks). In detail, we re-analyzed a large set of practice data involving seven sessions, in which an auditory-vocal task was combined with a visual-manual task.  Results:  At the end of practice, the current results were largely consistent with the structuralist account.  Conclusions:  We conclude that dual-action requirements in the present dual-task setting are mentally represented in a predominantly structuralist fashion at the end of practice in older adults. The results are discussed in the context of other theories on practice-related mechanisms of improved dual-task performance in this age group.

Gaze control is an important component of social communication, e.g. to direct someone's attention. While previous research on gaze interaction has mainly focused on the gaze recipient by asking how humans respond to perceived gaze (gaze cueing), we address the actor's point of view by asking how actors control their own eye movements to trigger a gaze response in others. Specifically, we investigate whether gaze responses of a (virtual) interaction partner are anticipated and thereby affect oculomotor control. Building on a pre-established paradigm for addressing anticipation-based motor control in non-social contexts, participants were instructed to alternately look at two faces on the screen, which consistently responded to the participant's gaze with either direct or averted gaze. We tested whether this gaze response of the targeted face is already anticipated prior to the participant's eye movement by displaying a task-irrelevant visual stimulus (prior to the execution of the target saccade), which was either congruent, incongruent, or unrelated to the subsequently perceived gaze. In addition to schematic and photographic faces, we included conditions involving changes in non-social objects. Overall, we observed congruency effects (as an indicator of anticipation of the virtual other's gaze response to one's own gaze) for both social and non-social stimuli, but only when the perceived changes were sufficiently salient. Temporal dynamics of the congruency effects were comparable for social and non-social stimuli, suggesting that similar mechanisms underlie anticipation-based oculomotor control. The results support recent theoretical claims emphasizing the role of anticipation-based action control in social interaction.

Pupil dilation is known to be affected by a variety of factors, including physical (e.g., light) and cognitive sources of influence (e.g., mental load due to working memory demands, stimulus/response competition etc.). In the present experiment, we tested the extent to which vocal demands (speaking) can affect pupil dilation. Based on corresponding preliminary evidence found in a reanalysis of an existing data set from our lab, we setup a new experiment that systematically investigated vocal response-related effects compared to mere jaw/lip movement and button press responses. Conditions changed on a trial-by-trial basis while participants were instructed to keep fixating a central cross on a screen throughout. In line with our prediction (and previous observation), speaking caused the pupils to dilate strongest, followed by nonvocal movements and finally a baseline condition without any vocal or muscular demands. An additional analysis of blink rates showed no difference in blink frequency between vocal and baseline conditions, but different blink dynamics. Finally, simultaneously recorded electromyographic activity showed that muscle activity may contribute to some (but not all) aspects of the observed effects on pupil size. The results are discussed in the context of other recent research indicating effects of perceived (instead of executed) vocal action on pupil dynamics., (© 2020 The Authors. Psychophysiology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

Human eye gaze conveys an enormous amount of socially relevant information, and the rapid assessment of gaze direction is of particular relevance in order to adapt behavior accordingly. Specifically, previous research demonstrated evidence for an advantage of processing direct (vs. averted) gaze. The present study examined discrimination performance for gaze direction (direct vs. averted) under controlled presentation conditions: Using a backward-masking gaze-discrimination task, photographs of faces with direct and averted gaze were briefly presented, followed by a mask stimulus. Additionally, effects of facial context on gaze discrimination were assessed by either presenting gaze direction in isolation (i.e., by only showing the eye region) or in the context of an upright or inverted face. Across three experiments, we consistently observed a facial context effect with highest discrimination performance for faces presented in upright position, lower performance for inverted faces, and lowest performance for eyes presented in isolation. Additionally, averted gaze was generally responded to faster and with higher accuracy than direct gaze, indicating an averted-gaze advantage. Overall, the results suggest that direct gaze is not generally associated with processing advantages, thereby highlighting the important role of presentation conditions and task demands in gaze perception.

When processing of two tasks overlaps, performance is known to suffer. In the well-established psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm, tasks are triggered by two stimuli with a short temporal delay (stimulus onset asynchrony; SOA), thereby allowing control of the degree of task overlap. A decrease of the SOA reliably yields longer RTs of the task associated with the second stimulus (Task 2) while performance in the other task (Task 1) remains largely unaffected. This Task 2-specific SOA effect is usually interpreted in terms of central capacity limitations. Particularly, it has been assumed that response selection in Task 2 is delayed due to the allocation of less capacity until this process has been completed in Task 1. Recently, another important factor determining task prioritization has been proposed-namely, the particular effector systems associated with tasks. Here, we study both sources of task prioritization simultaneously by systematically combining three different effector systems (pairwise combinations of oculomotor, vocal, and manual responses) in the PRP paradigm. Specifically, we asked whether task order-based task prioritization (SOA effect) is modulated as a function of Task 2 effector system. The results indicate a modulation of SOA effects when the same (oculomotor) Task 1 is combined with a vocal versus a manual Task 2. This is incompatible with the assumption that SOA effects are solely determined by Task 1 response selection duration. Instead, they support the view that dual-task processing bottlenecks are resolved by establishing a capacity allocation scheme fed by multiple input factors, including attentional weights associated with particular effector systems.

We examined aspects of social alerting as induced through the presence of an attentive but non-evaluative confederate on mental efficiency. To this end, individuals were administered with a chained mental-arithmetic task (levels: low vs. high demand) in two contextual conditions (levels: alone vs. presence). In addition, we examined self-report measures of subjective state for purposes of control. As a result, the presence (vs. alone) condition improved (not hampered) processing speed (while error rate remained low overall), and this effect was differentially more pronounced for high (vs. low) demand. Reaction-time distributional analyses revealed that improvements in average performance actually originated from a selective speeding-up in the slower percentiles, indicating that social alerting promotes stability of information-processing throughput. These results challenge prevalent theoretical notions of mere-presence effects as individuals became consistently faster and less vulnerable to commit attention failure. Our findings indicate that social presence promotes not only processing speed but volitional steadiness.

In clinical reports, individuals high on social anxiety are often described to avoid gaze at other people, whereas several experimental studies employing images of persons yielded conflicting results. Here, we show that gaze avoidance crucially depends on the possibility of social interactions. We examined gaze behaviour in individuals with varying degrees of social anxiety in real-life and in a second group of participants using a closely matched laboratory condition. In the real-life situation, individuals with a higher degree of social anxiety had a reduced bias to look at near persons compared to individuals with a lower degree of social anxiety, while gaze behaviour in the laboratory group was not modulated by social anxiety. This effect was specific to social attention since there was no corresponding effect regarding fixations on objects. The presence of anxiety effects in real-life but not in the laboratory condition, where participants do not expect to be evaluated by gazed-at conspecifics, points to critical deficits of current laboratory research paradigms in eliciting authentic social attentional mechanisms, possibly leading to spurious results., (© 2019 The Authors. British Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.)

Data analytics as a field is currently at a crucial point in its development, as a commoditization takes place in the context of increasing amounts of data, more user diversity, and automated analysis solutions, the latter potentially eliminating the need for expert analysts. A central hypothesis of the present paper is that data visualizations should be adapted to both the user and the context. This idea was initially addressed in Study 1, which demonstrated substantial interindividual variability among a group of experts when freely choosing an option to visualize data sets. To lay the theoretical groundwork for a systematic, taxonomic approach, a user model combining user traits, states, strategies, and actions was proposed and further evaluated empirically in Studies 2 and 3. The results implied that for adapting to user traits, statistical expertise is a relevant dimension that should be considered. Additionally, for adapting to user states different user intentions such as monitoring and analysis should be accounted for. These results were used to develop a taxonomy which adapts visualization recommendations to these (and other) factors. A preliminary attempt to validate the taxonomy in Study 4 tested its visualization recommendations with a group of experts. While the corresponding results were somewhat ambiguous overall, some aspects nevertheless supported the claim that a user-adaptive data visualization approach based on the principles outlined in the taxonomy can indeed be useful. While the present approach to user adaptivity is still in its infancy and should be extended (e.g., by testing more participants), the general approach appears to be very promising., (Copyright © 2020 Poetzsch, Germanakos and Huestegge.)

Doing two things at once (vs. one in isolation) usually yields performance costs. Such decrements are often distributed asymmetrically between the two actions involved, reflecting different processing priorities. A previous study (Huestegge & Koch, 2013) demonstrated that the particular effector systems associated with the two actions can determine the pattern of processing priorities: Vocal responses were prioritized over manual responses, as indicated by smaller performance costs (associated with dual-action demands) for the former. However, this previous study only involved auditory stimulation (for both actions). Given that previous research on input-output modality compatibility in dual tasks suggested that pairing auditory input with vocal output represents a particularly advantageous mapping, the question arises whether the observed vocal-over-manual prioritization was merely a consequence of auditory stimulation. To resolve this issue, we conducted a manual-vocal dual task study using either only auditory or only visual stimuli for both responses. We observed vocal-over-manual prioritization in both stimulus modality conditions. This suggests that input-output modality mappings can (to some extent) attenuate, but not abolish/reverse effector-based prioritization. Taken together, effector system pairings appear to have a more substantial impact on capacity allocation policies in dual-task control than input-output modality combinations.

Dual tasking is known to yield performance costs. Corresponding research has often focused on early or central task processing stages, that is, on features related to stimulus processing or response selection. Here, we demonstrate the important role of the final (late) stage of task processing by studying effects of effector system combinations. We used pairwise combinations of tasks requiring oculomotor, manual, vocal, and pedal responses, triggered by visual/auditory stimuli. Across task combinations, we compared dual-task costs among effector systems (e.g., oculomotor, vocal, and pedal) under controlled conditions, that is, when combined with the same "context effector" (e.g., manual) in the other task. The dual-task cost pattern was strongly determined by the particular combination of effector systems in line with the assumption of an ordinal effector-based prioritization pattern (oculomotor > pedal > vocal > manual), and could not be explained by classic "first-come, first-served" accounts of central processing. Stimulus modality and its mapping to effector systems affected reaction times (RTs), but the impact on the general prioritization scheme was negligible, suggesting a more substantial influence of output (compared with input) system characteristics on dual-task capacity scheduling. The results call for a distinct effector system weighting mechanism in models of dual-task control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Effect-based accounts of human action control have recently highlighted the possibility of representing one's own actions in terms of anticipated changes in the behavior of social interaction partners. In contrast to action effects that pertain to the agent's body or the agent's physical environment, social action effects have been proposed to come with peculiarities inherent to their social nature. Here, we revisit the currently most prominent demonstration of such a peculiarity: the role of eye contact for action-effect learning in social contexts (Sato & Itakura, 2013, Cognition, 127, 383-390). In contrast to the previous demonstration of action-effect learning, a conceptual and a direct replication both yielded evidence for the absence of action-effect learning in the proposed design, irrespective of eye contact. Bayesian statistics supported this claim by demonstrating evidence in favor of the null hypothesis of no effect. These results suggest a limited generalizability of the original findings-for example, due to limitations that are inherent in the proposed study design or due to cultural differences.

Temporal organization of human behavior is particularly important when several action requirements must be processed around the same time. A crucial challenge in such multitasking situations is to control the temporal response order. However, multitasking studies usually focus on temporal processing dynamics after a specific response order - which is usually triggered by stimulus sequence and instructions - has been determined, whereas a comprehensive study of response-order scheduling mechanisms is still lacking. Across three psychological refractory period (PRP) experiments, we examined the impact of stimulus order, response characteristics, and several other factors on response order. Crucially, we utilized a combination of effector systems (oculomotor and manual) that are known to ensure reasonable response order variability in the first place. The results suggest that - contrary to previous assumptions - bottom-up factors (e.g., stimulus order) are not the primary determinant of temporal action scheduling. Instead, we found a major influence of effector-based characteristics (i.e., oculomotor task prioritization) that could be attenuated by both instructions and changes in the task environment (providing temporally predictable input). Effects of between-task compatibility suggest that a dedicated stimulus-code comparison process precedes and affects response-order scheduling. Based on the present results and previous findings, we propose a multi-phase framework of temporal response-order control that emphasizes the extent to which cognitive control of action scheduling is dynamically adaptive to particular task characteristics.

Background: While the coordination of oculomotor and manual behavior is essential for driving a car, surprisingly little is known about this interaction, especially in situations requiring a quick steering reaction. In the present study, we analyzed oculomotor gaze and manual steering behavior in approach and avoidance tasks. Three task blocks were implemented within a dynamic simulated driving environment requiring the driver either to steer away from/toward a visual stimulus or to switch between both tasks., Results: Task blocks requiring task switches were associated with higher manual response times and increased error rates. Manual response times did not significantly differ depending on whether drivers had to steer away from vs toward a stimulus, whereas oculomotor response times and gaze pattern variability were increased when drivers had to steer away from a stimulus compared to steering toward a stimulus., Conclusion: The increased manual response times and error rates in mixed tasks indicate performance costs associated with cognitive flexibility, while the increased oculomotor response times and gaze pattern variability indicate a parsimonious cross-modal action control strategy (avoiding stimulus fixation prior to steering away from it) for the avoidance scenario. Several discrepancies between these results and typical eye-hand interaction patterns in basic laboratory research suggest that the specific goals and complex perceptual affordances associated with driving a vehicle strongly shape cross-modal control of behavior.

The present study tested whether the coupling of covert attentional shifts and motor planning of pointing movements can be modulated by learning. Participants performed two tasks. As a primary movement task, they executed a pointing movement to a movement target (MT) location. As a secondary visual attention task, they identified a discrimination target (DT) that was presented shortly before initiation of the pointing movement. These DTs either occurred at the same or at different locations with the MT. A common finding in such and similar settings is the enhanced visual target identification when locations of MT and DT coincide. However, it is not known which factors govern the flexibility of spatial attention-action coupling. Here, we tested the influence of previously learned spatial contingencies between MT and DT on the coupling of covert attention and motor planning. These contingencies were manipulated in three groups (always same locations, always opposite locations, non-contingent locations) in a training session. Results indicated that in a subsequent test phase, previously learned contingencies enhanced visual identification accordingly, even when targets for the movement task and the visual task were presented at opposite sides. These results corroborate previous findings of a rather flexible interaction of attention and motor planning, and demonstrate how one can learn to control attention by means of motor planning.

Based on current integration theories of face-voice processing, the present study had participants process 1,152 videos of faces uttering digits. Half of the videos contained face-voice gender-incongruent stimuli (vs. congruent stimuli in the other half). Participants indicated digit magnitude or parity. Tasks were presented in pure blocks (only 1 task) and in task switching blocks (using colored cues to specify task). The results indicate significant congruency effects in pure blocks, but partially reversed congruency effects in task switching, probably due to enhanced assignment of capacity toward resolving difficult situational demands. Congruency effects did not dissipate over time, ruling out that initial surprise associated with incongruent stimuli drove the effects. The results show that interference between two task-irrelevant person-related dimensions (face/voice gender) can affect processing of a third, task-relevant dimension (digit identity), suggesting greater processing ease associated with more authentic voices (i.e., voices that do not violate face-based expectancies).

Models of eye-movement control distinguish between different control levels, ranging from automatic (bottom-up, stimulus-driven selection) and automatized (based on well-learned routines) to voluntary (top-down, goal-driven selection, e.g., based on instructions). However, one type of voluntary control has yet only been examined in the manual and not in the oculomotor domain, namely free-choice selection among arbitrary targets, that is, targets that are of equal interest from both a bottom-up and top-down processing perspective. Here, we ask which features of targets (identity- or location-related) are used to determine such oculomotor free-choice behavior. In two experiments, participants executed a saccade to one of four peripheral targets in three different choice conditions: unconstrained free choice, constrained free choice based on target identity (color), and constrained free choice based on target location. The analysis of choice frequencies revealed that unconstrained free-choice selection closely resembled constrained choice based on target location. The results suggest that free-choice oculomotor control is mainly guided by spatial (location-based) target characteristics. We explain these results by assuming that participants tend to avoid less parsimonious recoding of target-identity representations into spatial codes, the latter being a necessary prerequisite to configure oculomotor commands.

A negative mood-congruent attention bias has been consistently observed, for example, in clinical studies on major depression. This bias is assumed to be dysfunctional in that it supports maintaining a sad mood, whereas a potentially adaptive role has largely been neglected. Previous experiments involving sad mood induction techniques found a negative mood-congruent attention bias specifically for young individuals, explained by an adaptive need for information transfer in the service of mood regulation. In the present study we investigated the attentional bias in typically developing children (aged 6-12 years) when happy and sad moods were induced. Crucially, we manipulated the age (adult vs. child) of the displayed pairs of facial expressions depicting sadness, anger, fear and happiness. The results indicate that sad children indeed exhibited a mood specific attention bias toward sad facial expressions. Additionally, this bias was more pronounced for adult faces. Results are discussed in the context of an information gain which should be stronger when looking at adult faces due to their more expansive life experience. These findings bear implications for both research methods and future interventions.

Performing many actions at the same time is usually associated with performance costs. However, recent eye-tracking evidence indicates that under specific conditions, inhibiting a secondary response can be more costly than executing it, resulting in dual-action benefits. Here, we show that performance gains due to the absence of inhibitory control demands in dual-action trials are not limited to saccades as a response modality. In our study, participants had to react to a visually presented directional word by either reading the stimulus aloud (vocal modality), pressing the corresponding arrow key on a keyboard (manual modality), or both. Crucially, manual error rates were significantly lower when participants had to respond with both a button press and naming than when they had to respond with naming only. More specifically, in vocal-only conditions we observed a significant percentage of false-positive manual responses, suggesting difficulties with inhibiting an unwarranted manual action. Thus, our results indicate that difficulties associated with single- (vs. dual-) action control are a stable, domain-general phenomenon that likely arises whenever execution-related demands are accompanied by substantial additional inhibitory control demands.

Preparing for the moment of action speeds up reaction time (RT) performance even if the particular response is unknown beforehand. When the preparatory interval, or foreperiod (FP), varies unpredictably between trials, responses usually become faster with increasing FP length. This variable-FP effect has been demonstrated to partly originate from trial-to-trial sequential effects of FP length, which are asymmetric as they occur mainly in short-FP but not in long-FP trials. In two experiments, we examined whether and how event-specific biases arising from previous target processing and responding affect both variable-FP and sequential FP effects. We found that trial-to-trial repetitions (vs. alternations) of imperative events produced response time benefits in short-FP but not in long-FP trials, almost eliminating the variable-FP effect, while the sequential FP effect remained intact. This asymmetric contribution to speeded performance in variable-FP settings suggests that sequential event-specific biases may be highly transient and not necessarily an integral part of the mental representations that guide time-based expectancy, or may be overridden by high levels of nonspecific preparation in long-FP trials. In conclusion, temporal preparation appears to be a nonspecific mechanism (i.e., generally not bound to particular event features) for prioritizing certain positions on the mental time line, on which event-specific short-term biases are superimposed if time-based preparation is weak. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)