Markus Janczyk

Objective: We examined how response–effect (RE), stimulus–response (SR), and stimulus–effect (SE) compatibility jointly influence performance in lever tool use, and test the robustness of previous results across different input modalities. Background: According to the ideomotor principle, motor actions are selected via anticipating their effects. This becomes particularly relevant in tool use, where the relationship between hand movement and tool movement might be inverted. While various compatibilities are known to influence performance, their interactions remain poorly understood. Method: We built upon work by Müsseler and Skottke (2011) using orthogonal manipulations of RE, SR, and SE compatibility. Across four experiments with student samples (2022–2024), we varied input modality (button presses, continuous sliders, touchless gestures) and lever rotation type (discrete vs. continuous) to assess the generalizability of the original findings. Results: Müsseler and Skottke (2011) showed that the interaction of SR and SE compatibility depends on the RE compatibility condition. Consistent with this, we found that under RE compatible conditions, performance was improved when SR and SE compatibilities aligned. However, under RE incompatible conditions, the SR × SE interaction disappeared with button press responses (Experiments 1 and 2) or reversed with more continuous responses (Experiments 3 and 4). Conclusion: These findings highlight the dynamic interplay of various compatibility relations for untrained participants, and that this interplay depends on, for example, the input device. Application: Our results inform the design of human-tool interfaces by highlighting when aligning response–effect mappings benefits performance and when mismatches can alter or even reverse other compatibility relationships.

Multitasking—defined as the more or less overlapping execution of two or more tasks—has been shown to impair performance and induce performance costs. Nevertheless, individuals frequently engage in multitasking for private and work-related purposes. This raises the question: Do subjective impressions about multitasking efficiency diverge from objective measures, or can multitasking indeed comprise benefits in certain conditions? While previous assessments of multitasking efficiency focused mostly on central processing limitations, they largely neglected benefits of parallel peripheral task processing in overlapping task execution. To address this empirically, we conducted two multitasking studies and compared Time on Task ( ToT ; Reissland & Manzey, 2016), that is, the total time needed to finish both sub-tasks, in an overlapping versus a sequential dual-task condition. Experiment 1 ( N = 18) applied a Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm with distinct task sets in Task 1 and Task 2. Experiment 2 ( N = 32) used identical task sets to maximize between-task interference in the overlapping dual-task condition. Results of both experiments showed shorter ToT in the overlapping compared to the sequential dual-task condition, without much evidence of compensatory effects. These results suggest that the assessment of multitasking efficiency should consider the total time on task needed to perform both tasks to capture the costs of central processing limitations as well as benefits of parallel peripheral task processing. They further underscore the importance of carefully selecting and justifying the chosen evaluation metrics when assessing multitasking efficiency.

In everyday life, we often generalize previously learned associations between our actions and their outcomes to novel, but similar situations. The present study aimed to conceptually and directly replicate results reported by Esser et al. (Psychological Research, 87(7), 2249–2258 2023), who reported that action–effect (A–E) learning generalizes to categorically similar stimuli. Yet, the overall picture in the published literature is not overwhelming with regard to such generalization, and hence a replication seems to be of particular importance. We present three experiments. In our conceptual replications (Experiment 1 and 2), we did not find evidence for A–E compatibility effects for either learned or similar stimuli. In the direct replication (Experiment 3), we observed evidence for successful A–E learning, but still failed to replicate generalization to similar stimuli. A critical difference between Experiments 1 and 2 and Experiment 3, however, is that stimulus-stimulus (S-S) learning was not possible in the former two experiments, but in the latter one (as was already acknowledged by Esser et al.). In sum, our results (1) suggest a critical role of S-S learning in this particular design (2) and question whether A–E learning truly generalizes to similar stimuli.

A central question in cognitive psychology concerns how humans selectively attend to task-relevant information while ignoring task-irrelevant information. This question is frequently studied using conflict tasks, such as the Simon, Eriksen flanker, and Stroop tasks that require responses to relevant stimulus features while ignoring irrelevant and potentially conflicting features. All conflict tasks produce better performance in congruent trials where task-relevant features and irrelevant features match compared with when they mismatch in incongruent trials: the congruency effect. However, they differ markedly in the temporal dynamics of this congruency effect and accordingly in their RT distributions. The Diffusion Model for Conflict tasks (DMC) was introduced as a model to formally account for all distributional patterns in conflict tasks. It integrates dual-route theories of cognitive control into the framework of sequential sampling models by positing two superimposed, independent evidence accumulation processes: a linear one for controlled processing of the task-relevant information, and a pulse-like one for automatic processing of the task-irrelevant information, in which activation first increases until a maximum and then decreases again. This review summarizes DMC’s architecture, its core parameters, and its ability to account for various distributional patterns. We review and discuss applications of DMC across several psychological domains, and technical considerations such as parameter estimation and recovery. Limitations of the model are critically assessed, and fields of open research are outlined. Overall, DMC offers a general account of conflict processing. While a powerful tool for quantifying the dynamics of selective attention and cognitive control, there is still a limited standardization in its application, and more research is needed to extend DMC to other classes of conflict tasks.

In many experimental-psychological studies, either the speed or the accuracy of responses could be the primary dependent variable of interest. Often, there is no straightforward choice and this decision is particularly difficult if there are signs of variation in speed–accuracy tradeoff across conditions and/or participants. An apparently well-validated solution to this conundrum is the inverse efficiency score (IES). The general application of IES has never actually been endorsed in the cited sources and recent validation studies show that it does not serve well any of the major purposes to which it has been applied. Its popularity may even have hampered progress on the important methodological issue of how to best combine speed and accuracy measures. The present article traces the history of IES via a literature review and with the aid of contemporary witnesses. This exercise reveals a flaw in the academic culture that could be improved by increasing the value of either checking the original sources or instead being honest about the reliance on second-hand information. The story of IES also exemplifies how ignoring fundamental methodological problems makes practitioners resort to the most accessible solutions, often relying on a simplified appeal to authority and little else.

The ideomotor principle states that actions are selected by anticipating their effects. An abundance of empirical results supports this contention, but whether the effect of an action is delayed by an interval of a particular duration has mostly been a procedural detail in such studies. We will refer to this generically as an action-effect (A-E) delay. Few studies explicitly addressed the interval and its duration and concluded that its duration is a distinct feature of the effect and seems to be anticipated as well: Response times are longer when the interval is predictably longer relative to when it is shorter; hence, we observe delayed-effect costs. We here question this conclusion because the duration of the A-E interval and the total trial duration were confounded in all previous studies on that topic. Experiment 1 dissociated both features by manipulating either the A-E interval, the intertrial interval, or both in a negatively correlated way, yielding the same total trial duration. Results favor the hypothesis that the total trial duration is key to the delayed-effect costs. Experiment 2 manipulated whether participants focus on the effect, and hence the A-E interval duration, or the next fixation cross, and hence the total trial duration. Results again favor the importance of the total trial duration. As a consequence, previous interpretations should be reconsidered, and we here put forward an alternative motivational account as a more general explanation for delayed-effect costs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

In dual-task experiments, overlapping response characteristics of two successive tasks affect performance not only in Task 2 but also in Task 1. This observation is termed the backward crosstalk effect and is often explained by activated Task 2 response information influencing Task 1 response selection. In the present study, we describe and evaluate three diffusion models that specify Task 2 response activation as either linear, asymptotic, or pulse-like. Formal model comparisons and a parameter recovery suggest that linear Task 2 response activation is most accurate for most individuals. However, we also highlight the potential role of individual differences, as a pulse-like Task 2 response activation function may better describe a subset of individuals. Finally, we provide practical recommendations for researchers on how to fit the backward crosstalk effect in the larger context of dual-tasking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Two recent studies utilized indirect response procedures (i.e., a sentence completion task and the Implicit Association Test) and suggest that people evaluate the future more positively than the past (Kaup et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 612,720, 2021; Ulrich et al., Memory & Cognition, 52, 444–458, 2024). This present article reports a novel chronometric approach and a self-report study examining whether this relationship can be observed consistently. In one part of the chronometric study, participants were instructed to respond verbally with the words “past” and “tomorrow” to negatively and positively connotated words. In the positive-future condition, participants responded with “tomorrow” to positive and “yesterday” to negative words; in the positive-past condition, they responded with “yesterday” to positive and “tomorrow” to negative words. In the other part, participants responded verbally with “good” and “bad” to time-related words. In the positive-future condition, they responded with “good” to future-related and “bad” to past-related words; in the positive-past condition, they responded with “good” to past-related and “bad” to future-related words. Response times were shorter in the positive-future than in the positive-past condition, suggesting that participants consistently evaluate the future more positively than the past (i.e., the positive-future effect). This strengthens the view that the positive-future effect is robust and general. Several possible mechanisms of why this effect emerges are discussed. The self-report study, in contrast, indicated no significant difference in individuals' perceptions of the past compared to the future. This may be attributed to a positivity bias in recalling past events, which may mask the differences in how people perceive the past versus the future.