It’s about location, location, location: Absolute and relative stimulus positions in action control

TL;DR

This study explores how stimulus location—either absolute or relative—is used in action control processes, revealing a flexible system that adapts based on context.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel framework for understanding how absolute and relative stimulus positions influence binding and retrieval in action control.

Findings

Absolute stimulus location is used when each relative location has a unique absolute position.

Relative stimulus locations are used when absolute positions are ambiguous.

The results highlight context-dependent processing and prioritization in action control.

Abstract

In action control research, stimulus features are assumed to get bound to response features and integrated into an event file. Repetition of any feature leads to retrieval of this event file, causing interference with the current action, depending on whether features repeat or change. It is known that the location of a stimulus works as a feature in these processes. Location is usually operationalized as the absolute position of the stimulus; however, the significance of a particular stimulus location is often only revealed when its position relative to other context stimuli is considered as well. In two experiments (Ntotal = 100), we investigated under which conditions which form of location—absolute or relative—is used for binding and retrieval processes. It was shown that solely absolute stimulus location is used when there is a unique absolute target stimulus position for each possible relative target stimulus location. As soon as the target stimulus’ locations can no longer be conclusively defined by its absolute position, relative stimulus locations are used in binding and retrieval processes as well. Results are discussed in terms of prioritization processes and the idea of context-dependent processing of position deviances. Taken together, this reveals a flexible use of location as a feature in action control processes.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13414-025-03062-1.

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