16:30 - 18:00
Mon-B21-Talk III-
Mon-Talk III-
Room: B21
Chair/s:
Christian Seegelke, Peter Wühr
During the last decades, researchers discovered and investigated a multitude of cross-dimensional S-R compatibility effects between different stimulus and response dimensions, including quantities, valence, and space. A prominent example is the SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect, which describes the fact that human participants are faster and more accurate when responding to small numbers with a left rather than right response, and vice versa. Similar compatibility effects occur when physical size (spatial-size association of response code, SSARC) or valence varies as a stimulus feature, and participants respond with spatially distinct responses. Both the etiology and the structural sources of these compatibility effects are a matter of considerable debate. For many cross-dimensional compatibility effects, both local accounts (e.g., the mental number line as an explanation for the SNARC effect) and global accounts, which attempt to explain several phenomena through a general principle (e.g., a theory of magnitude; polarity correspondence) have been proposed. In this symposium, we present new research on different, cross-dimensional compatibility effects. Two contributions deal with the SNARC effect (Miklashevsky, Lindemann, & Fischer; Wühr & Richter), two talks report on the SSARC effect (e.g., Seegelke & Wühr; Wühr, Richter, & Seegelke), and a fifth contribution is concerned with valence-space interactions (Kühne, Nenaschew, & Miklashevsky). Based on these and other results, we evaluate similarities and differences between different compatibility effects, and discuss the plausibility of global accounts for these effects.
Anatomical vs. external response coding in space-size associations in a reaching task
Mon-B21-Talk III-04
Presented by: Christian Seegelke
Christian Seegelke 1, 2, Peter Wühr 3
1 Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria, 2 Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria, 3 TU Dortmund University
The spatial-size association of response code (SSARC) effect refers to the finding that (right-handed) participants respond faster and more accurate with the left hand to a small stimulus and with the right hand to a large stimulus. In the present study, we examined whether the crucial spatial response code refers to the anatomical side of the effector (i.e., left and right hand) or to the external spatial response position (i.e., where the hands are positioned in space). In separate blocks, participants performed planar reaching movements either with their left hand to small and with their right hand to large stimuli or with their left hand to large and with their right hand to small stimuli. To dissociate anatomical and external response coding, participants performed the reaches with their arms held in parallel or crossed. Regardless of arm posture, right-handed participants responded faster with their left hand to small stimuli and with their right hand to large stimuli. Left-handed participants exhibited the reversed pattern: faster responses with their left hand to large stimuli and with their right hand to small stimuli. Together, these results indicate the dominance of hand-related (anatomical) coding, rather than position-related (external) response coding in the SSARC effect.
Keywords: SR-compatibility, Reference frames, Physical stimulus size, Reaching, Response location