Biomedical subjects

Wilfried Kunde

Publications and source records attributed to Wilfried Kunde.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Temporal response-effect compatibility.

This study investigated the impact of duration-varying response effects on the generation and execution of duration-varying responses. Participants performed short or long keypresses which produced auditory effects of corresponding duration (short response ->short tone, long response ->long tone) or of noncorresponding duration (short response ->long tone, long response ->short tone). Experiment 1 revealed faster responding with a corresponding than with a noncorresponding Response-Effect (R-E) mapping; that is, a temporal R-E compatibility effect. Additionally, increasing effect duration increased response latencies, whereas it decreased keypress duration. Experiment 2 showed that the influence of temporal R-E compatibility persists even when responses are cued in advance, suggesting that at least part of it originates from response generation processes occurring later than a traditional response selection stage. These findings corroborate and complement effect-based theories of action control which assume that the selection, initiation, and execution of movements is mediated by anticipation of their sensory effects.

Attention↗

PubMed2003

Conscious control over the content of unconscious cognition.

Visual stimuli (primes) presented too briefly to be consciously identified can nevertheless affect responses to subsequent stimuli - an instance of unconscious cognition. There is a lively debate as to whether such priming effects originate from unconscious semantic processing of the primes or from reactivation of learned motor responses that conscious stimuli afford during preceding practice. In four experiments we demonstrate that unconscious stimuli owe their impact neither to automatic semantic categorization nor to memory traces of preceding stimulus-response episodes, but to their match with pre-specified cognitive action-trigger conditions. The intentional creation of such triggers allows actors to control the way unconscious stimuli bias their behaviour.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Sequential modulations of stimulus-response correspondence effects depend on awareness of response conflict.

In two experiments, sequential modulations of prime-target correspondence effects were investigated in a metacontrast paradigm. Primes were either unmasked and thus consciously discriminable, or entirely masked and thus indiscriminable. Mirroring similar findings from Eriksen- and Simon-type tasks, the influence of prime-target correspondence was reduced in trials that followed a noncorresponding prime-target pair, which suggests that prime-induced response activation can be temporarily suppressed after an incompatible trial. This sequential modulation was independent of prime discriminability in the current trial, but it occurred only when the prime, and thus a conflict between the prime-induced and the deliberately to-be-selected response, was consciously experienced in the preceding trial. This suggests that the suppression of automatic response priming is not an immediate consequence of response conflict, but an intention-mediated strategy.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

The impact of anticipated action effects on action planning.

Three experiments with a total of 72 participants investigated the assumption that motor actions are planned in terms of their sensorial effects. Participants had to prepare a certain action A that consistently led to a sensorial effect (a tone of certain pitch). Instead of (in Experiment 1) or before (in Experiments 2 and 3) the execution of the prepared action, another response B had to be carried out, which either resulted in the same or in a different auditory effect (a tone of same or different pitch). It was found that a to-be-executed response B was in general initiated more quickly when it resulted in the same effect as a concurrently prepared response A. The results are considered as evidence for the basic notion that the preparation and initiation even of very simple actions is mediated by an anticipation of their reafferences.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

A Simon effect for stimulus-response duration.

A non-spatial variant of the Simon effect for the stimulus-response (S-R) feature of duration is reported. In Experiment 1 subjects were required to press a single response key either briefly or longer in response to the colour of a visual stimulus that varied in its presentation duration. Short keypresses were initiated faster with short than with long stimulus duration whereas the inverse was observed with long keypresses. In Experiment 2 subjects were required to press a left or right key (according to stimulus form) either briefly or longer (according to stimulus colour). The stimuli concurrently varied in their location (left or right) and duration (short or long), which were both task irrelevant. Approximately additive correspondence effects for S-R location and S-R duration were observed. To summarize, the results suggest that the irrelevant stimulus features of location and duration are processed automatically and prime corresponding responses in an independent manner.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Verbal response-effect compatibility.

Ideomotor theory states that motor responses are activated by an anticipation of their sensory effects. We assumed that anticipated effects would produce response-effect (R-E) compatibility when there is dimensional overlap of effects and responses. In a four-choice task, visual digit stimuli called for verbal responses (color names). Each response produced a written response-effect on the screen. In different groups, the response-effect was a colored color word (e.g., blue in blue), a white color word, or a colored nonword (Xs in blue). In different blocks, the predictable effects were either incompatible (e.g., response "blue" --> effect: green) or compatible with the response. We found faster responses with compatible than with incompatible R-E mappings. The compatibility effect was strongest with colored words, intermediate with white words, and smallest with colored nonwords. We conclude that effect anticipation influences response selection on both a perceptual level (related to the word's color) and a conceptual level (related to the word's meaning).

Adult↗