Conditional and unconditional automaticity: a dual-process model of effects of spatial stimulus–response correspondence

“With respect to the objective threshold problem, none of the criticisms raised against the regression method (Dosher, 1998; Merikle & Reingold, 1998; Miller, 2000) can be overlooked, since none of them has been adequately rebutted thus far. Three rather straightforward remarks will dispense us to enter into the detail…”

“On the other hand, when comparing the RT distributions without explicit SOA manipulation, the congruency effect in the Simon task (Simon, 1990) has been shown to decrease (Hommel, 1993; de Jong et al., 1994), and can even reverse (Burle et al., 2002) as poststimulus time increases.”

“latency increases. In sharp contrast the Simon EVect has been shown to decrease in size as response latency increases ( De Jong, Liang, & Lauber, 1994 ).”

“These assumptions constitute the core of any multiple route architecture now commonly accepted to account for congruency effects such as the Simon task (de Jong et al., 1994; Kornblum et al., 1990).”

“Other researchers (De Jong et al., 1994; Kornblum et al., 1999) have found RR effects using left-or-right key press responses that combined a spatial location distracter manipulation.”

“Another commonly used behavioral method was the distributional analysis, in which participants’ RTs were grouped into bins according to values, then RTs of different bins were compared between compatible and incompatible conditions (De Jong et al., 1994; Hommel, 1997; Kornblum et al., 1999).”

“With respect to the dual-process account of interference effects (De Jong et al., 1994; Ridderinkhof et al., 1995) and furthermore assuming that Flanker interference is mediated via the conditional pathway while Simon interference is mediated via the unconditional pathway (Mansfield et al., 2013),…”

“This scheme is in accordance with other dual-process models that propose direct response priming effecs of distractors or directional cues in parallel to concurrent centra1 response selection or memory search processes (e.g., De Jong et al., 1994; Eriksen et al., 1986; Smid et al., 1991).”

“The resulting delta plot provides a way of zooming in on the AS effect at different points of the RT distribution (eg, Ridderinkhof, 2002 ; De Jong, Liang, & Lauber, 1994 ).”

“In summary, our results confirm previous conclusions (De Jong et al., 1994; Pratte et al., 2010; Proctor et al., 2011; Ridderinkhof, 2002a, 2002b) that DPs can be a valuable data-analytic tool, extending routine analyses of mean RT to a finer distributional level and providing more stringent…”

“Whereas, traditionally, studies have mainly tried to identify the precise mechanisms that underlie conflict-related performance decrements (thereby developing sophisticated models regarding different types of conflict, e.g., De Jong, Liang, & Lauber, 1994; Cohen, Dunbar, & McClelland, 1990; Kornblum, Hasbroucq, & Osma…”

“The possibility of overlap between the LRP and potentials related to the perception of a laterally presented stimulus has been acknowledged by other investigators (Coles et al., 1995; De Jong et al., 1994; Smulders, 1993).”

“This has never been observed (e.g., Vallesi, Mapelli, Schiff, Amodio, & Umilta, 2005; Valle-Inclan & Redondo, 1998; De Jong, Liang, & Lauber, 1994).”

“…RT distribution analyses including all three tasks by dividing RTs in quartiles (bins) from the fastest to the slowest (see De Jong et al., 1994; but see also Burle, Possamaı¨, Vidal, Bonnet, & Hasbroucq, 2002; de Jong et al., 1994; Ridderinkhof, van den Wildenberg, Wijnen, & Burle, 2004).”

“Eimer (1995) has suggested that the first phase of such a biphasic LRP, which he found very clearly in the presence of shared spatial features of stimulus and response, might be related to automatic response activation (see also De Jong et al., 1994).”

“Delta plots show the size of an experimental effect (e.g., the RT difference between a congruent and an incongruent condition) as a function of response speed (De Jong et al., 1994; Ridderinkhof, 2002; Ridderinkhof et al., 2005; Van Campen et al., 2014).”

“Linearity in a distribution plot is by no means a necessity for latency distributions (e.g., De Jong, Liang, & Lauber, 1994; Zhang & Kornblum, 1997), so it is possible that Watt’s regularity does not hold for the present verbal tasks.”

“Basically, dual-route models (e.g., De Jong et al., 1994; Kornblum, Hasbroucq, & Osman, 1990) maintain that, when the imperative stimulus appears, two routes are activated: the automatic, unconditional (direct) route, independent of stimulus identification; and the conditional (controlled) route,…”

“To rule out this possibility, we further examined the data of the long RSI by means of a RT distribution analysis (RT bin analysis; De Jong et al., 1994).”

“This early incorrect hand activation in the LRP of incompatible trials is typically regarded as automatic response priming mediated by the frontalmotor cortex (De Jong et al., 1994; Eimer, 1998; Valle-Inclán, 1996).”

“Delta plots are constructed by calculating the RT difference between competing and noncompeting conditions as a function of RT (de Jong et al., 1994; Ridderinkhof, 2002; see below for details).”

“…of cognitive control and automaticity, the Simon, or interference effect in the Simon task is of interest as it has been suggested to result from a combination of automatic and controlled processes (De Jong et al., 1994; Keye et al., 2013; Kornblum et al., 1990; Mückschel et al., 2016).”

“process irrespective of the required S-R mapping for that task ( De Jong et al., 1994 ).”

“…automatic” response tendencies indicating the stimulus laterality vs controlled conditional selection of stimulus features indicating the response button) emerges and complicates response selection processes (De Jong et al., 1994; Keye et al., 2013; Kornblum et al., 1990; M€uckschel et al., 2016).”

“According to dual-route models this performance impairment is related to conflict between two mutually exclusive response tendencies (Kornblum et al., 1990; De Jong et al., 1994).”

“With regard to the Simon task, two activation components associated with the selection of responses have been consistently found (see, e.g., De Jong et al., 1994; Eimer, 1995; Valle-Inclán, 1996).”

“Thus, nonocular response inhibition may produce IOR-like results in cue-target paradigms (Posner et al., 1985; De Jong et al., 1994; Spence and Driver, 1998a; Poliakoff et al., 2002a; Tassinari et al., 2002).”

“Several studies have sought to avoid this by using vertical layouts (e.g. De Jong et al., 1994; Stürmer et al., 2002).”

“One previous study that also examined a combination of the spatial Stroop and Simon tasks found an interaction of S-S and SR conflict effects [28].”

“This decrease in the Simon effect is often assumed to reflect an automatic activation of spatial codes that decays rapidly (De Jong et al., 1994). In fact, the overall RT for the go/no-go Simon task was slower (534 ms and 561 ms for compatible and incompatible trials, respectively) than that for the standard Simon tas…”

“In order to evaluate the time course of the Simon and affordance effects, we ran a distributional analysis (de Jong et al., 1994; Ratcliff, 1979).”

“Hommel (1993, cf. De Jong et al., 1994 ) showed that long-term memory-based compatibility effects were more pronounced among relatively quick responses.”

“Likemany other forms of SRC inwhich participants respond to static symbolic stimuli (De Jong et al., 1994; Eimer et al., 1995), imitative compatibility effects are attributed to automatic activation of the stimulus– compatible motor representation.”

“Reaction-time distribution analyses suggest that this smaller effect size when responding is delayed in the basic Simon task is due, in turn, to rapid activation of the corresponding response that dissipates over time (e.g., De Jong et al., 1994).”

“…from irrelevant stimulus dimensions in mixed designs – as in the Simon (1969) task – typically show the opposite pattern to that observed by Adam et al. (1998), and decrease in magnitude with increasing reaction time (e.g., De Jong, Liang, & Lauber, 1994; but see Wiegand & Wascher, 2005).”

“…larger than that in Experiment 1, although the absolute RT level was about 300 ms higher, which is also a discrepancy from the spatial Simon effect that typically declines with increasing RT level due to the decay of the stimulus’ irrelevant location code (De Jong et al., 1994; Hommel, 1994).”

“…have consistently shown that, in the case of lateralized stimuli, the Simon effect is present for the fastest responses but tends to decrease over time, with null or even inverted effects for the slowest responses (e.g., de Jong et al., 1994; Proctor et al., 2011; Rubichi et al., 1997).”

“De Jong et al. found that the Simon effect for visual tasks was largest at the short RT bins and decreased as RT increased. Likewise, in Cho and Proctor’s (2010) study, the Simon effect in the standard Simon-task condition (a colored circle located to the left or right) decreased across the RT distribution.”

“…of response activation processes when facing stimuli which were associated with certain responses, even when these responses were not eventually executed (Osman et al., 1992; De Jong et al., 1994; Eimer, 1995; Valle-Inclán, 1996; Gibbons and Stahl, 2008; also see Rothermund et al., 2005).”

“It is agreed upon that the Simon effect arises at the stage of response selection (e.g., De Jong, Liang, & Lauber, 1994; Kornblum, Hasbroucq, & Osman, 1990; Rubichi & Pellicano, 2004) and that it involves two independent and parallel response processes (Kornblum et al., 1990).”

“If the contribution of the automatic route is assumed to be the same across all tasks, an assumption that is commonly made (e.g., De Jong et al., 1994), this pattern of results suggests that the salience manipulations do not just affect the codes responsible for automatic response activation.”

“, De Jong et al., 1994; Hommel, 1993; Kornblum, Hasbroucq, & Osman, 1990): on the one hand a highly controlled, task-specific route responsible for translating the relevant stimulus feature into the correct response, on the other a more or less automatic route along which, however, quickly decaying spatial stimulus in…”

“They explained this result, in line with dual-route models (De Jong et al., 1994; Kornblum et al., 1990; Zorzi & Umiltà, 1995), by assuming that subjects performing Task I set up STM links to produce correct, spatially incompatible responses.”

“Contemporary models explain the Simon effect in terms of two parallel S-R processing routes (cf. De Jong et al., 1994; Hommel, 1993; Tagliabue et al., 2000; Zorzi and Umiltà, 1995).”