Nattkemper, D. & Frensch, P. A.
Humboldt University Berlin, Germany
Investigating the effects of action-effect compatibility has provided valuable insights into human action control. These studies show that responses are initiated faster if there is an overlap between features of the response and features of the effect. This observation emerged (among others) from experiments showing that a variant of the so-called SNARC-effect can be generated when persons produce numbers by key-presses. The SNARC-effect is a spatial compatibility effect which is usually observed when numbers are processed. Small numbers are preferentially responded to with the left hand and large numbers with the right hand. For explanation it is assumed that mental representations of numbers are associated with spatial information; relatively small numbers are associated with ?left? and relatively large numbers with ?right?. These relative spatial codes get activated when number identity is processed. Similar effects are observed when persons produce nominally task-irrelevant numbers by key-press responses to visual stimuli: Small numbers are preferentially produced with the left hand and large numbers with the right hand. This suggests that participants represented the relations between actions and their effects and used this knowledge in action control. We report a series of studies that aimed at investigating the details of action-effect acquisition and usage.