Thesis
Ideomotor stimuli lead to partial repetition costs in action planning
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2017
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100132
Abstract
When carrying out complex actions, it is often necessary to temporarily suspend one action plan in order to execute another. Research shows that retaining an action plan in working memory (WM) can delay or facilitate the execution of an interrupting action when the features of the two action plans partly overlap. However, the conditions in which overlap causes a delay (partial repetition cost; PRC) or facilitation (partial repetition benefit; PRB) in response to the interrupting action are not understood. We investigated whether PRBs occur for ideomotor compatible stimuli, and whether or not these benefits are greater for stimuli that are ideomotor compatible in both movement type and direction vs. direction alone. A third stimulus type that required the use of an arbitrary stimulus response (S-R) mapping, which has been shown to lead to PRCs in past research, was included for comparison. Participants viewed two sequentially presented visual stimuli. They retained an action plan to the first stimulus, and while retaining this plan, they executed a speeded response to the second stimulus when it appeared; afterwards they executed the plan to the first stimulus. The first and second stimuli were either both ideomotor compatible (moving dot or hand) or not (static abstract symbol). Results showed that PRCs occurred for all stimulus types, with the most ideomotor compatible stimulus (hand) showing the largest PRCs. These findings indicate that ideomotor compatible stimuli, assumed to place little demand on WM, can lead to larger PRCs. This suggests that stimuli that impose less of a demand on WM can lead to greater PRCs, inconsistent with studies that show that PRCs are reduced when more WM resources are available.
Metrics
5 File views/ downloads
15 Record Views
Details
- Title
- Ideomotor stimuli lead to partial repetition costs in action planning
- Creators
- James Ryan Miller
- Contributors
- Lisa R. Fournier (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Psychology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525096201842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis