Stephen G Atkins

Publications (2)4.24 Total impact

• Article: Numerosity and rhythmicity in stimulus-response compatibility.

  Stephen G Atkins, Jeff O Miller
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  ABSTRACT: When people must respond discriminatively to 1 or 2 stimuli by making 1 or 2 taps of a response key, they initiate the response more rapidly when the correct number of taps matches the number of stimuli (compatible condition) than when it mismatches (incompatible condition; J. O. Miller, S. G. Atkins, & F. Van Nes, 2005). Miller et al. sometimes found an effect of compatibility on response execution time, as reflected in the interresponse intervals between successive taps. The authors report 2 further experiments (N = 8 participants) in which they generalized the numerosity compatibility effects on response-initiation time and interresponse intervals to 2- versus 3-stimulus sequences. In addition, they varied gap length between stimuli to see whether the rhythm of the stimulus would influence that of the response. Weak rhythmicity effects were repeatedly found, but those were too small to suggest a plausible alternative explanation for the numerosity compatibility effect on response-initiation time.
  Journal of Motor Behavior 11/2006; 38(6):478-84. · 1.64 Impact Factor
• Article: Compatibility effects based on stimulus and response numerosity.

  Jeff Miller, Stephen G Atkins, Fenna Van Nes
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  ABSTRACT: Four choice reaction time experiments documented a stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility effect involving the numbers of stimuli and responses. In Experiment 1, the stimulus consisted of one or two tones, and the correct response was either one or two taps of a response key. Responses were much faster with a compatible S-R assignment, in which the number of taps matched the number of tones, than with an incompatible assignment in which these numbers mismatched. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect, using visual stimuli and bimodal stimuli, respectively, suggesting that auditory/manual rhythmic compatibility is not essential to it. Experiment 4 showed that an analogous but smaller effect is obtained when stimuli are the digits 1 and 2. This new numerosity-based compatibility effect has general theoretical implications regarding the mechanisms responsible for compatibility effects and practical implications for interface design.
  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 05/2005; 12(2):265-70. · 2.61 Impact Factor