Topic
Simon effect
About: Simon effect is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 639 publications have been published within this topic receiving 27644 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
TL;DR: The model provides a systematic account of SRC effects, a taxonomy of simple performance tasks that were hitherto thought to be unrelated, and suggestive parallels between these tasks and the experimental paradigms that have traditionally been used to study attentional, controlled, and automatic processes.
Abstract: The classic problem of stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility (SRC) is addressed. A cognitive model is proposed that views the stimulus and response sets in S-R ensembles as categories with dimensions that may or may not overlap. If they do overlap, the task may be compatible or incompatible, depending on the assigned S-R mapping. If they do not overlap, the task is noncompatible regardless of the assigned mapping. The overlapping dimensions may be relevant or not. The model provides a systematic account of SRC effects, a taxonomy of simple performance tasks that were hitherto thought to be unrelated, and suggestive parallels between these tasks and the experimental paradigms that have traditionally been used to study attentional, controlled, and automatic processes. In this article, we address the classic problem of stimulusresponse (S-R) compatibility (SRC). A model is proposed that attempts to provide a systematic account of performance in highly compatible, incompatible, and noncompatible tasks. At the core of our model is the idea that when a particular S-R ensemble produces either high or low compatibility effects, it is because the stimulus and response sets in the ensemble have properties in common, and elements in the stimulus set automatically activate corresponding elements in the response set. Noncompatible tasks are those in which the stimulus and response sets have nothing in common. If the activated response is the required one, it will be executed rapidly and correctly; if it is not, then it will be relatively slow and error prone. Whether a particular S-R ensemble will produce compatibility effects is often quite easy to determine because of the relationship between the stimulus and response sets. In the part of the model that treats the representational aspects of the problem, we postulate that this relationship is based on the commonality, simi
1,948 citations
TL;DR: It appears, therefore, that controlled processing is carried out more effectively by bilinguals and that bilingualism helps to offset age-related losses in certain executive processes.
Abstract: Previous work has shown that bilingualism is associated with more effective controlled processing in children; the assumption is that the constant management of 2 competing languages enhances executive functions (E. Bialystok, 2001). The present research attempted to determine whether this bilingual advantage persists for adults and whether bilingualism attenuates the negative effects of aging on cognitive control in older adults. Three studies are reported that compared the performance of monolingual and bilingual middle-aged and older adults on the Simon task. Bilingualism was associated with smaller Simon effect costs for both age groups; bilingual participants also responded more rapidly to conditions that placed greater demands on working memory. In all cases the bilingual advantage was greater for older participants. It appears, therefore, that controlled processing is carried out more effectively by bilinguals and that bilingualism helps to offset age-related losses in certain executive processes.
1,618 citations
TL;DR: Empirical findings and theoretical explanations from two domains, those of the Simon effect and the spatial Stroop effect, are reviewed to clarify how and why stimulus location influences performance even when it is uninformative to the correct response.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of irrelevant location information on performance of visual choice-reaction tasks. We review empirical findings and theoretical explanations from two domains, those of the Simon effect and the spatial Stroop effect, in which stimulus location has been shown to affect reaction time when irrelevant to the task. We then integrate the findings and explanations from the two domains to clarify how and why stimulus location influences performance even when it is uninformative to the correct response. Factors that influence the processing of irrelevant location information include response modality, relative timing with respect to the relevant information, spatial coding, and allocation of attention. The most promising accounts are offered by models in which response selection is a function of (1) strength of association of the irrelevant stimulus information with the response and (2) temporal overlap of the resulting response activation with that produced by the relevant stimulus information.
955 citations
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the effects of an irrelevant directional cue on human information processing and the Simon effect with visual displays, which finds that movements to the right are faster when the right command is heard in the right ear than when it is seen in the left ear.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the effects of an irrelevant directional cue on human information processing. A fundamental concern in cognitive psychology and in human factors engineering is to understand the factors that affect the speed of translating information from a display into an appropriate control action. A series of related experiments demonstrate that the location of a stimulus provides an irrelevant directional cue that affects the time required to process the meaning of the stimulus. The reaction time data have revealed that the effect was not because of any simple isomorphic association between ear stimulated and ipsilateral hand. The same command ear stimulated interaction has also occurred for movement time. It is found that movements to the right are faster when the right command is heard in the right ear than when it is heard in the left ear, and, similarly, movements to the left are faster when the left command is heard in the left ear than when it is heard in the right ear. The Simon effect with visual displays is also elaborated in the chapter.
809 citations
TL;DR: These findings rule out gating/suppression accounts that attribute sequential dependencies to response selection difficulties and demonstrate that accounting for the sequential dependencies of Simon effects does not require the assumption of information gating or response suppression.
Abstract: Recent studies have shown that the effects of irrelevant spatial stimulus-response (S-R) correspondence (i.e., the Simon effect) occur only after trials in which the stimulus and response locations corresponded. This has been attributed to the gating of irrelevant information or the suppression of an automatic S-R route after experiencing a noncorresponding trial-a challenge to the widespread assumption of direct, intentionally unmediated links between spatial stimulus and response codes. However, trial sequences in a Simon task are likely to produce effects of stimulus- and response-feature integration that may mimic the sequential dependencies of Simon effects. Four experiments confirmed that Simon effects are eliminated if the preceding trial involved a noncorresponding S-R pair. However, this was true even when the preceding response did not depend on the preceding stimulus or if the preceding trial required no response at all. These findings rule out gating/suppression accounts that attribute sequential dependencies to response selection difficulties. Moreover, they are consistent with a feature-integration approach and demonstrate that accounting for the sequential dependencies of Simon effects does not require the assumption of information gating or response suppression.
682 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 3 |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2023 | 5 |
| 2022 | 9 |
| 2021 | 26 |
| 2020 | 27 |