title: The benefit of no choice: goal-directed plans enhance perceptual processing.
abstract: Choosing among different options is costly. Typically, response times are slower if participants can choose between several alternatives (free-choice) compared to when a stimulus determines a single correct response (forced-choice). This performance difference is commonly attributed to additional cognitive processing in free-choice tasks, which require time-consuming decisions between response options. Alternatively, the forced-choice advantage might result from facilitated perceptual processing, a prediction derived from the framework of implementation intentions. This hypothesis was tested in three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 were PRP experiments and showed the expected underadditive interaction of the SOA manipulation and task type, pointing to a pre-central perceptual origin of the performance difference. Using the additive-factors logic, Experiment 3 further supported this view. We discuss the findings in the light of alternative accounts and offer potential mechanisms underlying performance differences in forced- and free-choice tasks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology III, University of Würzburg, Röntgenring 11, 97070, Würzburg, Germany, markus.janczyk@uni-wuerzburg.de.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Janczyk
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dambacher
authors.forename: Maik
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bieleke
authors.forename: Peter M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Gollwitzer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult