title: Trial-to-trial sequential dependencies in a social and non-social Simon task.
abstract: Recent research has shown that joint-action effects in a social Simon task provide a good index of action co-representation. The present study aimed to specify the mechanisms underlying joint action by considering trial-to-trial transitions. Using non-social stimuli, we assigned a Simon task to two participants. Each was responsible for only one of two possible responses. This task was performed alone (Individual go/nogo task) and in cooperation with another person who was sitting alongside (Joint go/nogo task). As a further control task, we added a Standard Simon task. Replicating previous findings (Sebanz et al. in Cognition 88:B11-B21, 2003), we found no spatial compatibility effect in the Individual go/nogo task but we did find one in the Joint go/nogo task. A more detailed analysis showed that a sequential modulation of the Simon effect was present in both the Joint and the Individual go/nogo tasks. We found reliable Simon effects in trials following Simon compatible trials not only in the Joint go/nogo task but also to a somewhat smaller extent in the Individual go/nogo task. For both these go/nogo tasks, sequential modulation effects were stronger for nogo/go transitions than for go/go transitions. This suggests that low-level feature binding and repetition mechanisms contribute to the social Simon effect related to the specific requirement not to respond on nogo trials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. roman.liepelt@uni-muenster.de
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Liepelt
authors.forename: Dorit
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wenke
authors.forename: Rico
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Prinz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*