Abstract
Theories assuming an effect-based coding of action predict that motor responses become activated by the perception of the responses’ sensory effects. In accordance with this prediction it was found that responding to a visual target is faster and more accurate when the target is briefly preceded by the visual effect of the required response. Most importantly, this effect-induced response priming was independent of prime perceptibility and it occurred even when the prime was not consciously discriminable. Beyond ruling out alternative interpretations of earlier induction studies in terms of deliberate response biases, this suggests that effect codes evoke their associated motor patterns in a highly automatic manner not affording conscious mediation. The results accord with a functional dissociation between the consciousness-mediated implementation and the consciousness-independent realization of action goals.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Counterbalancing the R-E mapping eliminates potential influences of coding preferences in orthogonal S-R ensembles (e.g., “right” being more closely related to “up” than to “left”, Weeks & Proctor, 1991). Still, a left response that consistently produces, say, an up-pointing arrow might be recoded as being “up” (or vice versa, the up-pointing arrow might be recoded as being “left”). This, however, is not only true for arrows but for any contingent R-E relationship (e.g., a high tone might be recoded as “left” when produced by a left key press or vice versa, Elsner & Hommel, 2001). Note that this is not an alternative account of the present priming effects as much as a rephrasing of the proposed ideo-motor account: Responses and effects become linked with each other bi-directionally, whereby they acquire each others’ properties.
The procedure by Hautus (1995) for the correction of extreme values in calculating d’ was applied.
The prime discrimination data of one participant were lost, so this mean is based on 15 participants. The response priming data of this participant were well within the range of the other subjects, and excluding this participant from analysis did not alter the overall data pattern in any significant respect.
References
Beckers, T., De Houwer, J., & Eelen, P. (2002). Automatic integration of non-perceptual action effect features: The case of associative affective Simon effect. Psychological Research, 66, 166–173.
Elsner, B., & Hommel, B. (2001). Effect anticipation and action control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27, 229–240.
Goodale, M. A., & Humphrey, G. K. (1998). The objects of action and perception. Cognition, 67, 181–207.
Greenwald, A. G. (1972). On doing two things at once: Timesharing as a function of ideomotor compatibility. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 94, 52–57.
Greenwald, A. G. (2003). On doing two things at once. III. Confirmation of perfect timesharing when simultaneous tasks are ideomotor compatible. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 859–868.
Greenwald, A. G., & Shulman, H. G. (1973). On doing two things at once. II. Elimination of the psychological refractory period effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 101, 70–76.
Harleß, E. (1861). Der Apparat des Willens. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 38, 50–73.
Hautus, M. J. (1995). Corrections for extreme proportions and their biasing effects on estimated values of d’. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 27, 46–51.
Hommel, B. (1996). The cognitive representation of action: Automatic integration of perceived action effects. Psychological Research/Psychologische Forschung, 59, 176–186.
Hommel, B., Müsseler, J., Aschersleben, G., & Prinz, W. (2001). The theory of event coding (TEC): A framework for perception and action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 869–937.
Iacoboni, M., Woods, R. P., Brass, M., Bekkering, H., Mazziotta, J. C., & Rizzolatti, G. (1999). Cortical mechanisms of human imitation. Science, 286, 2526–2528.
James, W. (1981/1890). The principles of psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Keele, S. W. (1968). Movement control in skilled motor performance. Psychological Bulletin, 70, 387–403.
Klapp, S. T., Porter-Graham, K. A., & Hoijfield, A. R. (1991). The relation of perception and motor action: Ideomotor compatibility and interference in divided attention. Journal of Motor Behavior, 23, 155–162.
Koch, I., & Kunde, W. (2002). Verbal response-effect compatibility. Memory and Cognition, 30, 1297–1303.
Kunde, W. (2001). Response-effect compatibility in manual choice reaction tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27, 387–394.
Kunde, W. (2003a). Sequential modulations of stimulus-response correspondence effects depend on awareness of response conflict. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10, 198–205.
Kunde, W. (2003b). Temporal response-effect compatibility. Psychological Research, 67, 153–159.
Kunde, W., Kiesel, A., & Hoffmann, J. (2003). Conscious control over the content of unconscious cognition. Cognition, 88, 223–242.
Lien, M-C., Proctor, R. W., & Allen, P. A. (2002). Ideomotor compatibility in the psychological refractory period effect: Twenty-eight years of oversimplification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28, 396–409.
Lotze, R. H. (1852). Medizinische Psychologie oder die Physiologie der Seele. Leipzig, Germany: Weidmann’sche Buchhandlung.
Meltzoff, A. N., & Moore, M. K. (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. Science, 198, 75–78.
Neumann, O., & Klotz, W. (1994). Motor responses to nonreportable, masked stimuli: Where is the limit of direct parameter specification? In Umilta, C., Moscovitch, M. (Eds.), Attention and performance 15: Conscious and nonconscious information processing. Attention and performance series (pp. 123–150). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Öhmann, A., & Soares, J. (1998). Emotional conditioning to masked stimuli: expectancies for aversive outcomes following nonrecognized fear-relevant stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 69–82.
Ratcliff, R. (1979). Group reaction time distributions and analysis of distribution statistics. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 446–461.
Schmidt, R. A. (1975). A schema theory of discrete motor skill learning. Psychological Review, 82, 225–260.
Stürmer, B., Aschersleben, G., & Prinz, W. (2000). Correspondence effects with manual gestures and postures: A study of imitation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26, 1746–1759.
Vorberg, D., Mattler, U., Heinecke, A., Schmidt, T., & Schwarzbach, J. (2003). Invariant time-course of priming with and without awareness. In C. Kaernbach, E. Schröger, & H. Müller (Eds.). Psychophysics beyond sensation: Laws and invariants of human cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Weeks, D. J., & Proctor, R. W. (1991). Salient-features coding in the translation between orthogonal stimulus and response dimensions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 119, 355–366.
Zießler, M., & Nattkemper, D. (2002). Effect anticipation and action planning. In Prinz, W., & Hommel, B. (Eds.), Common mechanisms in perception and action: Attention & Performance XIX. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements
The funding of this research was provided by a grant from the German Research Foundation to Joachim Hoffmann and Wilfried Kunde (Grant HO 1301/6-1&3). I thank Dieter Nattkemper, Michael Zießler, Ines Jentzsch, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and Susanne Ebert and Karsten Toth for collecting data.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kunde, W. Response priming by supraliminal and subliminal action effects. Psychological Research 68, 91–96 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-003-0147-4
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-003-0147-4