THE COGNITIVE REPRESENTATION OF ACTION - AUTOMATIC INTEGRATION OF PERCEIVED ACTION EFFECTS

Actions have been assumed to be cognitively represented by codes of re levant action features. Six experiments investigated whether irrelevan t action features - conditioned response-contingent auditory events - are also coded and integrated into action codes, Subjects responded to visual stimuli by pressing a left - versus right-hand button or by to uching a single key once versus twice. Responses produced certain acti on effects: tones on the left versus the right or tones of low versus high pitch. After subjects had some practice, an ''inducing stimulus'' was presented together with the reaction stimulus; this inducing stim ulus shared features with the action effect of the correct or incorrec t: response. If action effects were integrated into action codes, indu cing stimuli should activate or prime the associated response, Indeed, substantial effects of correspondence or compatibility between induci ng stimuli and irrelevant action effects were found in a variety of ta sks. Results are interpreted as evidence for an automatic integration of information about action effects and taken as support of an action- concept model of action-effect integration and stimulus-response compa tibility.