Why free choices take longer than forced choices: evidence from response threshold manipulations

Naefgen, Christoph; Dambacher, Michael; Janczyk, Markus

doi:10.1007/s00426-017-0887-1

Cited by 25 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…1 The prime task was free choice, so participants could choose freely whether to press the top or the bottom key. Nonetheless, they were instructed to maintain an approximately equal ratio of top to bottom responses (see, e.g., Naefgen, Dambacher, & Janczyk, 2017). The subsequent probe task required participants to respond to target color squares (S2; red vs. blue vs. yellow; visual angle of 1.2°per square) presented centrally within the original puzzle piece (S1), with always incongruent flanker color squares; this target required a right-hand response on the BB,^BN,^or BM^keys (see also Fig.…”

Section: Tasks and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common mechanisms in error monitoring and action effect monitoring

Steinhauser

Wirth

Kunde

et al. 2018

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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In the present study, we considered error-related brain activity in event-related potentials, to investigate the relationship between error monitoring-that is, the detection and evaluation of erroneous responses-and action effect monitoring-that is, monitoring of the sensory consequences of behavior. To this end, participants worked on a task-switching paradigm that consisted of a free-choice task, in which a puzzle piece had to be attached to an existing one (the prime task), and a subsequent color flanker task (the probe task). We examined whether unexpected action effects in the prime task would affect the subsequent error monitoring in the probe task. We found the neural correlates of error monitoring during the probe task, the error-related negativity as well as the error positivity, to be increased after unexpected action effects in the prime task. In contrast, the neural correlates of visual attention were decreased after unexpected action effects, in line with recent findings on an attenuation of sensory processing after errors. Our results demonstrate a direct link between monitoring processes in the two tasks. We propose that both error monitoring and action effect monitoring rely on a common generic monitoring system related to novelty detection or affective processing. Preactivating this system by means of unexpected action effects increases the sensitivity for detecting an error in the subsequent task.

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Section: Tasks and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common mechanisms in error monitoring and action effect monitoring

Steinhauser

Wirth

Kunde

et al. 2018

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

Self Cite

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“…Still, free-choice tasks usually involve the presentation of a stimulus serving as a starting point for the response-time (RT) interval. A robust finding is that responses are faster in forced-than in free-choice tasks, either because two different ''action-control systems'' handle stimulus-versus goal-driven actions or because free-choice tasks require an additional process dedicated to target specification (e.g., Astor-Jack & Haggard, 2005;Brass & Haggard, 2008;Janczyk, Nolden, & Jolicoeur, 2015;Naefgen, Dambacher, & Janczyk, 2018;Obhi & Haggard, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free-choice saccades and their underlying determinants: Explorations of high-level voluntary oculomotor control

et al. 2019

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Models of eye-movement control distinguish between different control levels, ranging from automatic (bottom-up, stimulus-driven selection) and automatized (based on well-learned routines) to voluntary (top-down, goal-driven selection, e.g., based on instructions). However, one type of voluntary control has yet only been examined in the manual and not in the oculomotor domain, namely free-choice selection among arbitrary targets, that is, targets that are of equal interest from both a bottom-up and topdown processing perspective. Here, we ask which features of targets (identity-or location-related) are used to determine such oculomotor free-choice behavior. In two experiments, participants executed a saccade to one of four peripheral targets in three different choice conditions: unconstrained free choice, constrained free choice based on target identity (color), and constrained free choice based on target location. The analysis of choice frequencies revealed that unconstrained free-choice selection closely resembled constrained choice based on target location. The results suggest that free-choice oculomotor control is mainly guided by spatial (location-based) target characteristics. We explain these results by assuming that participants tend to avoid less parsimonious recoding of target-identity representations into spatial codes, the latter being a necessary prerequisite to configure oculomotor commands.

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“…It seems that the shift from a voluntary task switching design (in which two of four task keys were correct) to a cued task-switching design (in which only one of four task keys is correct) causes strong confusion, requiring high cognitive effort and leading to a high error rate. Although there are several studies that combine free-choice tasks with forced-choice tasks (e.g., Fröber and Dreisbach, 2017 ; Naefgen et al, 2017 ), those different tasks were rather intermixed and participants were aware of both task types. In our case, those participants who were trained in a voluntary task-switching paradigm did not know they would have to shift to a cued task-switching paradigm.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Participants were fastest in the voluntary task-switching design. This is noteworthy, as usually free-choice tasks are executed more slowly than forced-choice tasks (e.g., Naefgen et al, 2017 ). This usual pattern was also seen in the control conditions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Usually, free-choice tasks are performed slower than forced-choice tasks, as they are accompanied by additional cognitive processes. It is assumed that these processes reflect generating internally a task goal (see Naefgen et al, 2017 ). Providing action effects in a voluntary task-switching paradigm might accelerate this goal generating process.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Action-Effect Associations in Voluntary and Cued Task-Switching

Sommer

Lukas

2018

Front. Psychol.

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The literature of action control claims that humans control their actions in two ways. In the stimulus-based approach, actions are triggered by external stimuli. In the ideomotor approach, actions are elicited endogenously and controlled by the intended goal. In the current study, our purpose was to investigate whether these two action control modes affect task-switching differently. We combined a classical task-switching paradigm with action-effect learning. Both experiments consisted of two experimental phases: an acquisition phase, in which associations between task, response and subsequent action effects were learned and a test phase, in which the effects of these associations were tested on task performance by presenting the former action effects as preceding effects, prior to the task (called practiced effects). Subjects either chose freely between tasks (ideomotor action control mode) or they were cued as to which task to perform (sensorimotor action control mode). We aimed to replicate the consistency effect (i.e., task is chosen according to the practiced task-effect association) and non-reversal advantage (i.e., better task performance when the practiced effect matches the previously learned task-effect association). Our results suggest that participants acquired stable action-effect associations independently of the learning mode. The consistency effect (Experiment 1) could be shown, independent of the learning mode, but only on the response-level. The non-reversal advantage (Experiment 2) was only evident in the error rates and only for participants who had practiced in the ideomotor action control mode.

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Why free choices take longer than forced choices: evidence from response threshold manipulations

Cited by 25 publications

References 59 publications

Common mechanisms in error monitoring and action effect monitoring

Common mechanisms in error monitoring and action effect monitoring

Free-choice saccades and their underlying determinants: Explorations of high-level voluntary oculomotor control

Action-Effect Associations in Voluntary and Cued Task-Switching

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