Eimer Martin, Schubö Anna, Schlaghecken Friedericke
Department of Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK.
J Mot Behav. 2002 Mar;34(1):3-10. doi: 10.1080/00222890209601926.
Masked prime stimuli presented immediately before target stimuli in a choice reaction task give rise to behavioral costs when the primes and the target stimuli are mapped to the same response and result in benefits when they are mapped to opposite responses. Researchers assume that this negative compatibility effect reflects inhibitory processes in the control of perceptuomotor links. The authors investigated whether the inhibition operates at the level of abstract central codes or at effector-specific motor stages. In 2 experiments (N = 8 participants in each), left or right hand or foot responses were required to target stimuli that were preceded by masked arrow primes mapped to the same response side as the target stimuli in compatible trials and to the opposite response side in incompatible trials; the primes were irrelevant in neutral trials. In Experiment 1, when the masked primes determined both response side and modality, there was no transfer of negative compatibility effects across response modalities. That finding is inconsistent with a central abstract locus of inhibition and suggests that inhibition operates at effector-specific motor stages. In Experiment 2, primes conveyed only response side information but left response modality uncertain, and negative compatibility effects were elicited for both hand and foot responses, suggesting that partially informative masked primes can trigger a parallel activation and subsequent inhibition of response processes within separate effector systems.
在选择反应任务中，在目标刺激之前立即呈现的掩蔽启动刺激，当启动刺激和目标刺激被映射到相同反应时会产生行为成本，而当它们被映射到相反反应时则会产生收益。研究人员认为，这种负兼容性效应反映了感知运动联系控制中的抑制过程。作者研究了这种抑制是在抽象的中枢编码水平上起作用，还是在效应器特异性运动阶段起作用。在2个实验中（每个实验有8名参与者），要求对目标刺激做出左手或右手或左脚或右脚的反应，在兼容试验中，目标刺激之前有掩蔽箭头启动刺激，该启动刺激被映射到与目标刺激相同的反应侧，在不兼容试验中则被映射到相反的反应侧；在中性试验中，启动刺激无关。在实验1中，当掩蔽启动刺激同时决定反应侧和反应方式时，负兼容性效应不会在不同反应方式之间转移。这一发现与抑制的中枢抽象位点不一致，并表明抑制作用于效应器特异性运动阶段。在实验2中，启动刺激仅传达反应侧信息，但反应方式不确定，并且对手部和脚部反应都引发了负兼容性效应，这表明部分信息性的掩蔽启动刺激可以在单独的效应器系统内触发反应过程的平行激活和随后的抑制。
