The level of representation of irrelevant stimuli—Distractor–response binding within and between the senses

Abstract

Binding theories assume that features of stimuli and executed responses can be integrated together in one event file (Hommel, Visual Cognition, 5, 183–216, 1998; Hommel, Cognitive Sciences, 8, 494–500, 2004). Every reencounter with one or more of the stored features leads to an automatic retrieval of the previously constructed event file and hence of the response—even the repetition of a task-irrelevant distractor stimulus can retrieve a previously encoded response. This so-called distractor–response binding effect is typically investigated using a sequential prime-probe design that allows the orthogonal variation of response relation (response repetition vs. resporrevertnse change) and distractor relation (distractor repetition vs. distractor change), while probe response times and error rates are measured as dependent variable. Previous research has shown that task-relevant stimuli can be represented at different levels (e.g., perceptual and conceptual; see Henson et al., Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 376–384, 2014), yet it is not clear at which level of representation distractor stimuli are processed. In the present study, we focused on the level of representation of response-irrelevant distractor stimuli. To this end, a crossmodal distractor–response binding paradigm was used that enables the differentiation between the perceptual and conceptual representation of the distractor by allowing the systematic repetition and change of conceptual distractor features independent of perceptual repetitions. The results suggest that the repetition of perceptual distractor features is indispensable for the initiation of the retrieval process while the sole repetition of conceptual distractor features is not sufficient to start the retrieval process.