This study investigated whether compatibility between responses and their consistent sensorial effects influences performance in manual choice reaction tasks. In Experiment 1 responses to the nonspatial stimulus attribute of color were affected by the correspondence between the location of responses and the location of their visual effects. In Experiment 2, a comparable influence was found with nonspatial responses of varying force and nonspatial response effects of varying auditory intensity. Experiment 3 ruled out the hypothesis that acquired stimulus-effect associations may account for this influence of response-effect compatibility. In sum, the results show that forthcoming response effects influence response selection as if these effects were already sensorially present, suggesting that in line with the classical ideomotor theory, anticipated response effects play a substantial role in response selection.

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This study investigated the impact of contingent action effects on response production. In Experiment 1 responses of varying intensity were initiated faster when contingently followed by auditory effects of corresponding rather than of noncorresponding intensity. This response-effect (R-E) compatibility influence was robust with respect to practice, and it was not due to persisting influences of preceding R-E episodes. These results support the conclusion that R-E compatibility reflects the impact of anticipatory effect representations in response production. Experiment 2 showed that anticipatory effect codes have an impact on early processes of response production (response selection) as well as on processes that immediately precede overt responding (response initiation). Finally, they also influence the way the actions are physically performed (response execution). The results support and specify ideo-motor theories of action control that assume movements to be controlled by anticipations of their sensorial effects.

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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.

In many competitive sports, players try to deceive their opponents about their behavioral intentions by using specific body movements or postures called fakes. For example, fakes are performed in basketball when a player gazes in one direction but passes or shoots the ball in another direction to avert efficient defense actions. The present study aimed to identify the cognitive processes that underlie the effects of fakes. The paradigmatic situation studied was the head fake in basketball. Observers (basketball novices) had to decide as quickly as possible whether a basketball player would pass a ball to the left or to the right. The player's head and gaze were oriented in the direction of an intended pass or in the opposite direction (i.e., a head fake). Responding was delayed for incongruent compared to congruent directions of the player's gaze and the pass. This head fake effect was independent of response speed, the presence of a fake in the immediately preceding trial, and practice with the task. Five further experiments using additive-factors logic and locus-of-slack logic revealed a perceptual rather than motor-related origin of this effect: Turning the head in a direction opposite the pass direction appears to hamper the perceptual encoding of pass direction, although it does not induce a tendency to move in the direction of the head's orientation. The implications of these results for research on deception in sports and their relevance for sports practice are discussed.