Action effects are coded as transitions from current to future stimulation: Evidence from compatibility effects in tracking.

Abstract

There is ample evidence that motor actions are stored in terms of, and controlled by, the sensory effects that these actions produce. At present it is unclear, though, whether action control is governed by intended sensory changes (e.g., the transition from darkness to brightness when switching on a light) or only by intended sensory end states (e.g., the light being on). The present study explored the role of sensory changes for action control. To address this issue, participants engaged in a spatial tracking task. We show that performance is determined by the compatibility between motor patterns and subsequent changes of a controlled stimulus, while the intended end state of the stimulus remains constant. Spatial compatibility increases performance even when perceptual changes of spatial features are not the primary target of control. These results suggest that intended transitions of stimulation have the potential to bias motor actions. We consider these results as an important step toward integrating closed-loop regulation approaches and ideomotor approaches of action control. (PsycINFO Database Record

Design choices: Empirical recommendations for designing two-dimensional finger-tracking experiments

“…In Experiment 1 , we tested how the input device that is used for movement tracking might influence movement trajectories (Moher & Song, 2019 ). Following recent trends, we compared two setups that use a computer mouse to measure continuous movements (e.g., Jusyte et al, 2017 ; Pfister, Wirth, Schwarz, Steinhauser, & Kunde, 2016 ; Scherbaum, Dshemuchadse, Fischer, & Goschke, 2010 ; Tabatabaeian, Dale, & Duran, 2015 ) as well as a setup that takes advantage of the touchscreen of a tablet computer (e.g., Kunde, Schmidts, Wirth, & Herbort, 2017 ; Wirth, Pfister, Foerster, Huestegge, & Kunde, 2016 ).…”

Temporal binding past the Libet clock: testing design factors for an auditory timer

“…The devices that we used employed a touch sampling rate of 60 Hz, which equals up to 16 ms of input lag (even though newer devices improve on this). That said, in previous experiments we have successfully employed touchscreen devices in response time experiments (e.g., Dignath et al, 2020;Kunde, Schmidts, Wirth, and Herbort, 2017;Wirth, Dignath, Pfister, Kunde, and Eder, 2016a;Wirth, Kunde, and Pfister, 2019;Wirth, Pfister, Foerster, Huestegge, and Kunde, 2016b), showing high measurement precision with sufficient trials. Finally, as binding is computed as the difference between experimental and baseline conditions, which are both recorded using the same device, any systematic latencies should be cancelled out by subtraction.…”

Are freely chosen actions generated by stimulus codes or effect codes?

“…This might be explained by the assumption that actions are generated neither by stimulus codes nor by effect codes alone, but by codes that represent the transition of a specific stimulus to a subsequent specific effect (cf. Kunde, Schmidts, Wirth, & Herbort, 2017 , for some preliminary evidence for this). In general, actions transform the perceptual world prior to acting into another state after acting, as was the case in the present experiment: Responding, for example, to a rectangle at the top by a single key press transformed that rectangle to, for example, a rectangle on the left.…”