The tactile Eriksen flanker effect: A time course analysis.

In the present paper, we explore the temporal dynamics of the flanker effect in the tactile modality and compare it with findings in the visual modality. We created a tactile version of the flanker task in which we presented groups of dots oriented either vertically or horizontally to a participant's fingertips. The target stimulus was presented to the middle finger, while the flanker stimuli were presented to the index and the ring fingers. Distributional analyses of the latency data show a tactile flanker effect: an overall facilitation for congruent target-flanker trials relative to incongruent trials, and a higher effect size for slower correct responses (higher quantiles) than for faster correct responses (lower quantiles). While this congruency effect may resemble the one typically reported in the visual modality, there are differences between these two modalities as well, mainly related to the relative speed of error and correct responses. These differences suggest that some of the mechanisms responsible for the flanker effect differ across sensory modalities.