Binding for Action Slips: Internal Structure and Generalizability

• Applicants: Dr. Anna Foerster; Dr. Birte Moeller
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 393269228

Human action control benefits from episodic binding between representations of stimuli, responses and effects because these compounds provide shortcuts to future actions: Responses are retrieved upon reencountering any of their bound features, facilitating their execution. In our previous work, we provided a critical specification of binding and retrieval models for when binding takes place and what constitutes a response in this process. The results indicate that relevant and irrelevant stimuli are bound to intended correct responses even upon committing action slips while erroneous responses enter bindings with the effects they produce.The observation of two distinct sets of bindings has striking implications for the underlying framework of the Research Unit, because it challenges the core idea of a single binding mechanism that results in a unitary event file for stimuli, responses and effects. We will therefore pinpoint whether the two binding mechanisms work independently within an erroneous action episode, each producing their own binary bindings, or whether they contribute to the integration of all features of that episode into one event file. A second crucial aspect of the structure of binding is the transition from integrating intended correct responses to integrating erroneous responses instead. We propose that the response itself is a temporal or causal anchor that guides this transition. Further, we will address the generalizability of the principles of binding for action slips. A truly adaptive mechanism should be effective for extended body movements, not only for discrete actions that we have studied so far. We will tackle this aspect in two ways. First, we will investigate the two mechanisms of binding in innovative paradigms that allow for the assessment of continuous movement features. Second, more complex actions are oftentimes composed of several smaller-scale actions and have thus the potential to include both correct and erroneous aspects. Indeed, bindings do not always relate to individual discrete actions but can incorporate action sequences. We build on these findings and investigate under what circumstances erroneous responses prevent integration of individual actions into a more complex action sequence and when binding of correct and erroneous responses can be expected. If bindings between intended and executed response aspects emerge, they might be the crucial link to establish event files that incorporate all features of erroneous action episodes.We will sharpen the value of the underlying theoretical framework by carving out the structure of bindings and the generalizability of binding principles. Further, we will enhance the relevance of the framework by tackling binding and retrieval from the perspective of currently independent research areas, i.e., error processing in extended movements and action sequences, hierarchically organized action control, sequence learning and automatization.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2790: Binding and Retrieval in Action Control
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Christian Frings; Professor Dr. Roland Pfister