Action Selection by Temporally Close Transitions? Subtle Evidence from the Removal of Tactile Stimulation

Abstract

The ideomotor principle holds that actions can be initiated by anticipating their perceptual effects. While recent work suggests that effect anticipations rely on transitions rather than end-states, this has been shown only for visual effects. Here, we extended present approaches by investigating tactile effects. In two experiments, keypresses stopped vibrations on either the same (transition-compatible) or opposite (transition-incompatible) key, and we varied the task relevance of these effects. In Experiment 1 (task-irrelevant effects), compatibility influenced neither response times nor error rates. In Experiment 2 (task-relevant effects), response times were still not significantly influenced, but the error rates provided subtle evidence for transitional representations of tactile action effects. Our results not only challenge the predominant assumption of state-based effect representations but also provide insights for the temporal analysis of action effect structures and relate ideomotor learning to theories of optimal Bayesian integration.