Automatic effects of instructions do not require the intention to execute these instructions

ABSTRACT

Prior research established that newly instructed stimulus-response mappings, which have never been executed overtly before, can lead to automatic response-congruency effects. Such instruction-based congruency effects have been taken as evidence for the hypothesis that the intention to execute stimulus-response mappings results into functional associations that serve future execution. The present study challenges this hypothesis by demonstrating in a series of four experiments that maintaining instructed stimulus-response mappings for future recognition, rather than for future execution, can also lead to an instruction-based congruency effect. These findings indicate that the instruction-based congruency effect emerges even when it is very unlikely that participants form the intention to execute instructions. Alternative interpretations of the instruction-based congruency effect are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognitive control
• learning via instructions
• intention-based reflexivity
• instruction-based congruency effect

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 According to Jeffreys (1961), BF scores smaller than 1 designate “no evidence”, BF scores between 1 and 3 designate “anecdotal evidence”, BF scores between 3 and 10 designate “moderate evidence”, and BF scores larger than 10 designate “strong evidence”.

2 LISAS for subject i in condition j is defined as Mean_RT_ij + (StDev_RT_i / StDev_PE_i) x Mean_PE_ij.

3 Small variations occurred in the values of the BF due to Monte Carlo sampling noise. Re-running the analysis yielded BFs around 1.5.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by [grant number BOF16/MET_V/002] of Ghent University to Jan De Houwer.