Spruyt Adriaan, De Houwer Jan
Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
PLoS One. 2017 Oct 26;12(10):e0186606. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186606. eCollection 2017.
We introduce the (extrinsic) relational Simon task as a tool for capturing automatic relational stimulus processing. In three experiments, participants responded to a perceptual relation between two stimuli. Results showed that participants were faster and more accurate to respond when the (task-irrelevant) conceptual relation between these stimuli was compatible (rather than incompatible) with the (extrinsic) relational meaning of the required responses. This effect was replicated irrespective of the type of stimulus materials used, irrespective of the similarity between the relational information that was task-relevant and the relational information that was task-irrelevant, and irrespective of the complexity of the task-irrelevant relational information. Our findings add to a growing body of evidence showing that relational stimulus processing can occur under conditions of automaticity.
我们引入(外在)关系西蒙任务作为一种捕捉自动关系刺激处理的工具。在三个实验中,参与者对两个刺激之间的感知关系做出反应。结果表明,当这些刺激之间的(与任务无关的)概念关系与所需反应的(外在)关系意义相匹配(而非不匹配)时,参与者的反应更快且更准确。无论所使用的刺激材料类型如何,无论与任务相关的关系信息和与任务无关的关系信息之间的相似性如何,也无论与任务无关的关系信息的复杂性如何,这种效应都能得到重复验证。我们的研究结果进一步补充了越来越多的证据,表明关系刺激处理可以在自动性条件下发生。