The Carry-Over Effect of Competition in Task-Sharing: Evidence from the Joint Simon Task

Abstract

The Simon effect, that is the advantage of the spatial correspondence between stimulus and response locations when stimulus location is a task-irrelevant dimension, occurs even when the task is performed together by two participants, each performing a go/no-go task. Previous studies showed that this joint Simon effect, considered by some authors as a measure of self-other integration, does not emerge when during task performance co-actors are required to compete. The present study investigated whether and for how long competition experienced during joint performance of one task can affect performance in a following joint Simon task. In two experiments, we required pairs of participants to perform together a joint Simon task, before and after jointly performing together an unrelated non-spatial task (the Eriksen flanker task). In Experiment 1, participants always performed the joint Simon task under neutral instructions, before and after performing the joint flanker task in which they were explicitly required either to cooperate with (i.e., cooperative condition) or to compete against a co-actor (i.e., competitive condition). In Experiment 2, they were required to compete during the joint flanker task and to cooperate during the subsequent joint Simon task. Competition experienced in one task affected the way the subsequent joint task was performed, as revealed by the lack of the joint Simon effect, even though, during the Simon task participants were not required to compete (Experiment 1). However, prior competition no longer affected subsequent performance if a new goal that created positive interdependence between the two agents was introduced (Experiment 2). These results suggest that the emergence of the joint Simon effect is significantly influenced by how the goals of the co-acting individuals are related, with the effect of competition extending beyond the specific competitive setting and affecting subsequent interactions.

Competitive Game Play Attenuates Self-Other Integration during Joint Task Performance

“…Comparable findings of an attenuated or even absent SSE following a competitive induction were recently published by Iani et al (2014) . In their study, the social Simon task was performed before and after a flanker task in which monetary rewards were used to induce cooperation and competition.…”

“…The latter was shown in a study by de Bruijn et al (2008) where they found that successful competitors on a competitive task were able to refrain from attending to the other task share. Such differences in attentional processes between the conditions might serve as an alternative explanation for the findings of Iani et al (2014) . In their competitive induction, in which the individual performance in a flanker task is rewarded, a shift toward increased focus on one’s own task and ignoring the task of the co-actor is beneficial for successful performance.…”

Response coordination emerges in cooperative but not competitive joint task

“…In Experiment 1, we examined coordination of RTs when participants performed a go/no-go Simon task alone or side-by-side of another person, in a cooperative context. In line with previous studies, results from mean RTs showed a non-significant SE when participants performed the task alone, and a significant JSE when they were performing the task side-byside and were instructed to cooperate (Iani et al, 2011(Iani et al, , 2014, see Karlinsky, Lohse, and Lam, 2017 for a meta-analysis on the magnitude of the JSE ). The comparison of the distributional trends showed that response speed did not affect the magnitude of the SE neither in the Individual task nor in the Joint task.…”

“…Note that competition is a particular case of joint task in a shared environment, where individuals work to reach an individual goal that -in order to be reached -excludes the goal of the other co-agent. In line with previous studies showing that competition disrupts the emergence of shared representation in joint tasks (Iani et al, 2011(Iani et al, , 2014Ruys and Aarts, 2010) or affect the integration of self and other action events (Hommel et al, 2009; Russien and de Bruijin, 2016); we expected no difference in the SE between the…”

“…others' achievement of the goal: if our competitor reaches his/her goal, then we cannot reach our goal anymore (Deutsch 2011). Positive and negative goals interdependency between coagents differently affects the emergence of shared representations (e.g., Iani, Anelli, Nicoletti, Arcuri, and Rubichi, 2011;Iani, Anelli, Nicoletti, and Rubichi 2014;Ruys and Aarts, 2010) and self-other integration (Hommel, Colzato, and don Wildenberg, 2009;Russien and de Bruijn, 2016). For instance, Hommel et al (2009), manipulated the valence of the interaction between two co-agents during a Joint Simon Task.…”