Hand deviations toward distracters - Evidence for response competition

It has been suggested that, when movements are planned within cluttered env ironments, competing responses programmed to distracting stimuli are inhibi ted based on their relation to the action being performed. Further, as a re sult of this inhibition, the path of the movement made to the target object deviates away from the distractor. In contrast to the object avoidance hyp othesis, the results of the present study show that, for aiming movements m ade in environments in which distracters are present, the path of the movem ent veers toward the distracter. Moreover, the effects of the distracters o n the movement trajectory were independent of the direction of limb movemen t. These findings suggest that, when a distracter is not a potential physic al barrier, a response to the distracter may be activated along with the ta rget response and, owing to temporal advantages, cause a deviation of the m ovement trajectory toward the distractor.