A Simon effect with stationary moving stimuli.
To clarify whether motion information per se has a separable influence on action control, the authors investigated whether irrelevant direction of motion of stimuli whose overall position was constant over time would affect manual left-right responses (i.e., reveal a motion-based Simon effect). In Experiments 1 and 2, significant Simon effects were obtained for sine-wave gratings moving in a stationary Gaussian window. In Experiment 3, a direction-based Simon effect with random-dot patterns was replicated, except that the perceived direction of motion was based on the displacement of single elements. Experiments 4 and 5 studied motion-based Simon effects to point-light figures that walked in place--displays requiring high-level analysis of global shape and local motion. Motion-based Simon effects occurred when the displays could be interpreted as an upright human walker, showing that a high-level representation of motion direction mediated the effects. Thus, the present study establishes links between high-level motion perception and action.
Bosbach
Simone
S
Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Department of Cognition and Action, Munich, Germany. bosbach@psy.mpg.de
Prinz
Wolfgang
W
Kerzel
Dirk
D
D003118:Color Perception; D006801:Humans; D009039:Motion Perception; D011897:Random Allocation; D011930:Reaction Time; D013028:Space Perception; D014796:Visual Perception