Institut fur Psychologie, Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2011 Apr;37(2):442-54. doi: 10.1037/a0020563.
This study investigates the impact of working memory (WM) load on response conflicts arising from spatial (non) correspondence between irrelevant stimulus location and response location (Simon effect). The dominant view attributes the Simon effect to automatic processes of location-based response priming. The automaticity view predicts insensitivity of the Simon effect to manipulations of processing load. Four experiments investigated the role of spatial and verbal WM in horizontal and vertical Simon tasks by using a dual-task approach. Participants maintained different amounts of spatial or verbal information in WM while performing a horizontal or vertical Simon task. Results showed that high load generally decreased, and sometimes eliminated, the Simon effect. It is interesting to note that spatial load had a larger impact than verbal load on the horizontal Simon effect, whereas verbal load had a larger impact than spatial load on the vertical Simon effect. The results highlight the role of WM as the perception-action interface in choice-response tasks. Moreover, the results suggest spatial coding of horizontal stimulus-response (S-R) tasks, and verbal coding of vertical S-R tasks.
本研究考察了工作记忆（WM）负荷对由无关刺激位置和反应位置之间空间（非）对应引起的反应冲突的影响（Simon 效应）。主导观点将 Simon 效应归因于基于位置的反应启动的自动过程。自动性观点预测 Simon 效应对处理负荷的操作不敏感。四项实验通过双任务方法研究了空间和言语 WM 在水平和垂直 Simon 任务中的作用。参与者在执行水平或垂直 Simon 任务时，在 WM 中保持不同数量的空间或言语信息。结果表明，高负荷通常会降低，有时甚至消除 Simon 效应。有趣的是，空间负荷对水平 Simon 效应的影响大于言语负荷，而言语负荷对垂直 Simon 效应的影响大于空间负荷。结果强调了 WM 在选择反应任务中作为感知-动作接口的作用。此外，结果表明水平刺激-反应（S-R）任务的空间编码和垂直 S-R 任务的言语编码。
