title: Congruency-induced blindness: a cost-benefit analysis.
abstract: Targets are identified more accurately when they are presented during an incongruent response (e.g., a left-pointing arrowhead presented during a right key press) than during a congruent response (e.g., a left-pointing arrowhead presented during a left key press). This effect, referred to here as congruency-induced blindness, has been hypothesised to result from the occupation of feature codes. According to the code occupation hypothesis (Behav. Brain Sci.; J. Experim. Psychol.: Human Percept. Perform.; Vis. Cogn., in press), only costs of congruency between features of a planned or executed action and a to-be-perceived target should be observed; neither costs nor benefits of incongruency are predicted by this account. In the present study, we investigated costs and benefits in identifying left and right targets directly by manipulating neutral response type and the symbols used to cue the neutral response, which produced four neutral conditions. Three important results emerged: (1). a significant main effect of RSI (suggesting that increasing temporal overlap between a planned action and target presentation interferes with perceptual reports of the target), (2). a significant main effect of congruency (showing that impairment is code-specific), and (3). clear-cut costs with little evidence for benefits. Other complex patterns of results provided additional information relevant for extant theories of perception-action interactions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ont, Canada N2L 3G1.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Oriet
authors.forename: Biljana
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stevanovski
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jolicoeur
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D011897:Random Allocation; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception