| Stimulus-response compatibility is an important research object in the field of cognitive psychology. Simon effect task is a classic paradigm of stimulus-response compatibility. Simon effect refers to a phenomenon that even the partial location is a relevant dimension which can also affect the result of the individual responses. It shows when stimulus’ spatial information is consistent with the spatial information of required response, participants can react better than when they are inconsistent. More specifically, the response time is less and the accurate rate is higher. Studies have shown that many objective factors can influence the Simon effect, such as the type of stimulus, the way of how to present the stimulus and how to react, the strategies that participants applied in the task and the cognitive load. At the same time, affect is a kind of subjective factor, which can have an influence on spatial Simon effect. Human can form a relationship between spaces and affect valence based on their body and the experiences which come from interaction with environment. But in this relationship, we cannot rule out the response hand’s influence. So we adopt vocal response and control the arousal of emotion to explore how the emotion valence influences the spatial Simon effect. Further researching on Simon effect can not only make us have a thorough understanding of mechanism involving human cognitive information processing, but also can help us to design a more humanized man-machine system.In the research we apply vocal response through three experiments to demonstrate the influence of the irrelevant dimension-emotion valence on spatial Simon effect. In the first experiment, participants need to carry out a Simon task that response in vocal way, which can verify that spatial Simon effect can be generated in vocal response. The second experiment is based on the experiment 1 which applies vocal response Simon task to test whether emotion valence has influence on the spatial Simon effect. In this experiment, there are two kinds of irrelevant dimensions which include the presence location and emotion valence that give rise to spatial location conflict and valence conflict. Based on the pre-existing research, we assume that negative emotion will hinder one’s cognition control and impair spatial Simon effect, while positive emotion will promote one’s cognition control and facilitate spatial Simon effect, which state that emotion valence can influence spatial Simon effect. In the third experiment, we explore whether the influence of emotion valence on Simon effect is caused by the link of emotion valence with space. We find that emotion valence can adjust the spatial Simon effect, and the adjustment maybe caused by the link between affective valence and vocal response’ space (positive affective valence is linked with "right"; negative affective valence isn’t linked with "left").To be specific, we pick up 30 undergraduates’ data to conduct analysis in experiment 1. Stimulus is a circle whose diameter is 23 millimeter in red or green, which is presented on the left or on the right. Participants need to speak "left" or "right" based on the color of the circle. The objective of this experiment is to explore whether Simon effect can generate or not. The independent variable is congruence which has two level, congruence and incongruence. The dependent variable is the subjects’ response time and accuracy rate.In experiment 2, we use the same way to pick up 30 undergraduates who didn’t take part in experiment 1 to conduct analysis. The objective of this experiment is to explore how the affect valence influences Simon effect. The arrangement task and response rule is the same with experiment 1, but the stimulus in this experiment is different from experiment 1. In this experiment, we use brief strokes of friendly and anger expression (Proctor, Zhang, & Vu,2013; Zhang & Proctor,2008). Experiment uses 2(correspondence:correspondence, noncorrespondence)×2(affect valence: positive, negative) two-factor within-subjects design. The dependent variable is the subjects’response time and accuracy rate.In experiment 3, we pick up 30 undergraduates’ data to conduct analysis. This experiment is a control experiment of experiment 2. Because in experiment 2 the irrelevant dimensions of stimulus include appearance location and affect valence, it’s difficult to explain which element cause the generation of Simon effect. Its spatial location only influence Simon effect, or spatial location and valence-space metaphor can influence Simon effect together. So in this experiment we control the spatial location to present the stimulus in the central in order to avoid influencing the results. The stimulus, arrangement task and response rule is the same with experiment 2. Experiment uses 2(vocal response:"left", "right") x 2(affect valence:positive, negative) two-factor within-subjects design. The dependent variable is the subjects’ response time and accuracy rate.Based on the three experiments, we find that:(1) under corresponding condition, participants can work more quickly and more correctly than under noncorresponding condition. This phenomenon indicate that vocal response can generate Simon effect, and Simon effect cannot be disrupted by the response way. (2) When participants judge the color of the effective stimulus, we can still get Simon effect, and the affect valence can regulate Simon effect. Positive affect can impair the spatial Simon effect, but the negative affect can’t influence the spatial Simon effect, in a word affect valence can adjust spatial Simon effect. (3) Under vocal response paradigm, we get the relation between vocal responses with left/right space and affect valence. Positive effective valence is linked with "right"; negative effective valence isn’t linked with "left". This demonstrates that decreased Simon effect caused by the positive affect valence can be explained by the relation between affect valence and space, which support popularity correspondence account. |
PDF Full Text Request