Journal article
Chapter Six. Understanding Central Processes
The Psychology of learning and motivation, Vol.64, pp.195-245
01/01/2016
DOI: 10.1016/bs.plm.2015.09.006
Abstract
The act of choosing an action based on stimulus information and a set of arbitrary rules is termed response selection. It embodies the core of voluntary behavior and plays a critical role in most experimental tasks, yet the processes supporting it are poorly understood. Often, response selection is assumed to arise through the activation of stimulus-response (S-R) associations that bridge perceptual and motor processes. As others have pointed out before us, this conceptualization does little to account for many findings relating to choice response tasks. In the present chapter, we describe data from eight areas of research that bear on theories of response selection: task switching, the Hick-Hyman law, S-R compatibility, congruency effects, dual-task performance, task configuration, learning, and memory. We then turn to neuroimaging and neurophysiological data and examine what they indicate about how stimulus information can be flexibly mapped to motor output. Across these diverse domains, the shortcomings of the simple S-R association view consistently cohere around two related properties: First, conceptual aspects of the task trump physical properties of the stimulus and responses with regard to determining the varying demands on central processes. Second, task representations are highly structured, such that some actions are more closely related than others, and these relationships affect performance. We conclude by delineating alternative theoretical frameworks that might better capture the nature of the central processes supporting response selection.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Chapter Six. Understanding Central Processes
- Creators
- Eliot HazeltineEric H Schumacher
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- The Psychology of learning and motivation, Vol.64, pp.195-245
- DOI
- 10.1016/bs.plm.2015.09.006
- ISSN
- 0079-7421
- eISSN
- 1557-802X
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 01/01/2016
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984070885202771
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