Abstract
Two letter identification experiments were conducted using identical, irrelevant, or response-incompatible noise letters flanking the target in the display. The task was disjunctive reaction time (DRT), in which the subject responds to one target but not the other. Significant associative interference due to response-incompatible noise was not obtained. The effect is consistently obtained in comparable choice reaction time (CRT) experiments. It is concluded that this form of interference depends upon the presence of an active competing response. A CRT experiment was also conducted with a keypress and a verbal response as the competing responses. It produced the same interference as an experiment with two keypresses, suggesting that the dimension of response discriminability is not a factor in determining the amount of interference.
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Neisser, U. Personal communication, 1981.
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Grice, G. R., Canham, L., & Schafer, C. Development of associative and perceptual interference. Perception & Psychophysics, in press.
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This research was supported by PHS Grant MH16400 from the National Institute of Mental Health.
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Grice, G.R., Canham, L. & Schafer, C. Role of the response in associative interference. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 20, 214–216 (1982). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334819
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334819