Integrating salience and action – Increased integration strength through salience

ABSTRACT

It is assumed that stimuli and responses to them are integrated in an event file and further when all or some of these features repeat the previous event-file will be retrieved. The Binding and Retrieval in Action Control framework (Frings, C., Hommel, B., Koch, I., Rothermund, K., Dignath, D., Giesen, C., Kiesel, A., Kunde, W., Mayr, S., Moeller, B., Möller, M., Pfister, R., & Philipp, A. (2020). Binding and Retrieval in Action Control (BRAC). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(5), 375–387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.02.004 ) suggests that these integration and retrieval processes are independent, each can be individually modulated by top-down and bottom-up factors. One suggested bottom-up factor is salience. The present study investigated how target integration is modulated by salience in action control. Using a prime-probe design, targets were presented in either a salient colour or a non-salient colour in the prime. The results show that target-response binding is modulated by salience – integration is stronger when a target is presented in a salient colour compared to a non-salient colour. Salience modulates feature integration and thus the size of response binding effects.

KEYWORDS:

• Action control
• salience
• stimulus-response binding
• stimulus relevance

Acknowledgements

We thank Michael Frank for his valuable help with writing a clear and functional R script.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 White $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{G}{\mathrm{B}}_{\mathrm{P}\mathrm{P}}$: 1, 1, 1; Black $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{G}{\mathrm{B}}_{\mathrm{P}\mathrm{P}}$: −1, −1, −1; Blue $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{G}{\mathrm{B}}_{\mathrm{P}\mathrm{P}}$: 0, 0, 0.5; Green $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{G}{\mathrm{B}}_{\mathrm{P}\mathrm{P}}$: −0.6, 0.14, −0.6; Grey $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{G}{\mathrm{B}}_{\mathrm{P}\mathrm{P}}$: 0.047, 0.047, 0.047.

2 B, D, K, G, H, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z.

3 Three different screens were used, which produced slightly different luminance values, 50; 53; 60 cd/m² ±1 respectively.

4 ω² – values range from 1 to −1. With values greater than 0 depicting explained variance in the dependant variable by the independent variable.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Research Council (DFG) [grant number FR2133/14-1].