
Christian FringsUniversität Trier · General Psychology and Methodology
Christian Frings
Prof. Dr.
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266
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Introduction
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January 2011 - present
Universität Trier
January 2005 - December 2011
Publications
Publications (266)
Cognitive control involves response conflict resolution as well as response facilitation processing, with the latter being rarely discussed in classic conflict monitoring accounts. While increased shielding after incongruent trials is a robust finding interpreted as up-regulation of cognitive control in the dorsal ACC and dorsolateral PFC, the neur...
Stimulus and response features are linked together into an event file when a response is made towards a stimulus. If some or all linked features repeat, the whole event file (including the previous response) is retrieved, thereby affecting current performance (as measured in so-called binding effects). Applying the figure-ground segmentation princi...
Evidence suggests that the features of a stimulus and the actions performed on it are bound together into a coherent mental representation of the episode, which is retrieved from memory upon reencountering at least one of these features. Effects of such binding and retrieval processes emerge in action control, such as in multitasking situations lik...
Information overload resulting from the ever faster growing mass of digital data makes knowledge work more and more complex. Being able to not get distracted and focus on what is currently relevant consumes valuable cognitive resources. Support by intelligent assistance software might alleviate this problem. We report two experiments that addressed...
Nowadays there is consensus that stimulus and response features are partially represented in the same coding format furthering the binding of these features into event files. If some or all features comprised in an event file repeat later, the whole file can be retrieved thereby modulating ongoing performance (leading to so-called stimulus-response...
Our perception of moving stimuli is prone to systematic biases. Different biases, for example concerning the perceived speed, or spatial location, of a dynamic, moving stimulus, have consistently been reported in the literature. Different lines of experimental research, together with different theoretical explanations, have emerged analyzing and di...
In an environment, in which we are not only constantly surrounded by a vast amount of objects but also by other people most of the time, the interaction with others is inevitable and also very helpful. The ‘self’ seems to be a stable center in social contexts and whatever is associated with this self seems to influence the selection and processing...
The forward testing effect is an indirect benefit of retrieval practice. It refers to the finding that retrieval practice of previously studied information enhances learning and retention of subsequently studied other information in episodic memory tasks. Here, two experiments were conducted that investigated whether retrieval practice influences p...
The forward testing effect is an indirect benefit of retrieval practice. It refers to the finding that retrieval practice of previously studied information enhances learning and retention of subsequently studied other information in episodic memory tasks. Here, two experiments were conducted that investigated whether retrieval practice influences p...
Beta power increase has been suggested to be an electrophysiological marker of response inhibition during voluntary action stopping. We examined whether beta power increase accompanies inhibition in human motor memory, focusing the phenomenon of retrieval-induced forgetting that has been assumed to be the consequence of inhibition in memory. Wherea...
Responding to a stimulus leads to the integration of response and stimulus’ features into an event file. Upon repetition of any of its features, the previous event file is retrieved, thereby affecting ongoing performance. Such integration-retrieval explanations exist for a number of sequential tasks (that measure these processes as ’binding effects...
We introduce a new audio-visual illusion revealing the interplay between audio-visual integration and selective visual attention. This illusion involves two simultaneously moving objects that change their motion trajectory occasionally, but only the direction changes of one object are accompanied by spatially uninformative tones. We observed a sele...
Distractors and responses are integrated in an event file when they occur together.
Further, when all or some features repeat, the whole event file is retrieved, affecting
later action as observed in so-called binding effects. Previous research used varying
distractor pool sizes (ranging from just two to well over 30) to choose distractors
from, bu...
We introduce a new audio-visual illusion revealing the interplay between audio-visual integration and selective visual attention. This illusion involves two simultaneously moving objects that change their motion trajectory occasionally, but only the direction changes of one object are accompanied by spatially uninformative tones. We observed a sele...
Execution of two independent actions in quick succession results in transient binding of these two actions. Subsequent repetition of any of these actions automatically retrieves the other. This process is probably fundamental for developing complex action sequences. However, rigid bindings between two actions are not always adaptive. Sometimes, it...
Human perception and action rely on a fundamental binding mechanism that forges integrated event representations from distributed features. Encountering any one of these features later on can retrieve the whole event, thus expediting cognitive processing. The traditional view on binding confines it to successful action episodes, holding that the hu...
The cognitive system readily detects and corrects erroneous actions by establishing episodic bindings between representations of the acted upon stimuli and the intended correct response. If these stimuli are encountered again, they trigger the retrieval of the correct response. Thus, binding and retrieval efficiently pave the way for future success...
Accounts of human action control assume integration of stimulus and response features at response execution and, upon repetition of some of those features, retrieval of other previously integrated features. Even though both processes contribute sequentially to observed binding effects in studies using a sequential prime-probe design, integration an...
We introduce a new audio-visual illusion revealing the interplay between audio-visual integration and selective visual attention. This illusion involves two simultaneously moving objects that change their motion trajectory occasionally, but only the direction changes of one object are accompanied by spatially uninformative tones. We observed a sele...
A growing body of research implies a decline in core executive functions, such as cognitive inhibition, caused by experimental stress manipulation (Arnsten, 2009; Shields et al., 2016). On the contrary, the conflict literature reports rather inconsistent results due to greater control over response execution under stress. It is still under debate,...
Bindings between stimulus- and response features have received increasing attention in recent research and theorizing regarding human action control. Apparently, very simple mechanisms that lead to feature binding and retrieval of recently integrated features have an important influence on planning and execution of actions. Regarding the importance...
We can use information derived from passing time to anticipate an upcoming event. If time before an event varies, responses towards this event become faster with increasing waiting time. This variable-foreperiod effect has been often observed in response-speed studies. Different action control frameworks assume that response and stimulus features a...
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is widely used to explore the role of various cortical regions for reactive response inhibition. In recent years, tDCS studies reported polarity-, time- and stimulation-site dependent effects on response inhibition. Given the large parameter space in which study designs, tDCS procedures and task proced...
We examined selective directed forgetting in motor memory using a new variant of a three-list approach, to distinguish between accounts of directed forgetting. Participants consecutively studied three lists (L1, L2, and L3) of four sequential four-finger movements each. After studying L2, participants in the forget group were instructed to selectiv...
Binding between representations of stimuli and actions and later retrieval of these compounds provide efficient shortcuts in action control. Recent observations indicate that these mechanisms are not only effective when action episodes go as planned, but they also seem to be at play when actions go awry. Moreover, the human cognitive system even co...
Human action control relies on event files, i.e., short-term stimulus-response bindings that result from the integration of perception and action. The present electroencephalography (EEG) study examined oscillatory brain activities related to the integration and disintegration of event files in the distractor-response binding (DRB) task, which reli...
By saving information on external memory stores, we can offload temporarily irrelevant memories, we believe to be important in the future. The external saving of encoded items enhances subsequent memory performance for new information (Storm and Stone in Psychol Sci 26(2):182–188, 2015). Across three experiments, we replicated and specified this sa...
Merely observing how another person responds to a stimulus results in incidental stimulus-response (SR) bindings in memory. These observationally acquired SR bindings can be retrieved on a later occasion. Retrieval will bias current behavioral response tendencies towards re-execution of the observed response. Previous demonstrations of this effect...
Stimuli and responses that occur in close temporal contiguity are bound to each other and stored in short-term episodic traces or event files. A repetition of any of the features within an event file results in the retrieval of the entire event file and can influence responding. Along with task-relevant features, event files also contain task-irrel...
People regularly outsource parts of their memory onto external memory stores like computers or smartphones. Such cognitive offloading can enhance subsequent memory performance, as referred to the saving‐enhanced memory effect [Storm & Stone, 2015. Saving‐enhanced memory: The benefits of saving on the learning and remembering of new information. Psy...
Human perception and action rely on a fundamental binding mechanism that forges integrated event representations from distributed features. Encountering any one of these features later on can retrieve the whole event, thus expediting cognitive processing. The traditional view on binding confines it to successful action episodes, however, holding th...
In contrast to most prominent conflict monitoring accounts (Botvinick et al., 2001, 2004) the Theory of Event Coding (TEC, Hommel, 2001, 2019) and the Binding and Retrieval in Action Control framework (BRAC, Frings et al., 2020) postulate an early integration of stimulus and response features in common event files. There is ample evidence from EEG...
The perception of dynamic objects is sometimes biased. For example, localizing a moving object after it has disappeared results in a perceptual shift in the direction of motion, a bias known as representational momentum . We investigated whether the temporal characteristics of an irrelevant, spatially uninformative vibrotactile stimulus bias the pe...
Binding theories assume that features of stimuli and executed responses can be integrated together in one event file (Hommel, Visual Cognition, 5, 183–216, 1998; Hommel, Cognitive Sciences, 8, 494–500, 2004). Every reencounter with one or more of the stored features leads to an automatic retrieval of the previously constructed event file and hence...
Selective attention is a key mechanism to monitor conflict-related processing and behaviour, by amplifying task-relevant processing and inhibiting task-irrelevant information. Conflict monitoring and resolution is typically associated with a synchronization in the theta frequency range (4-9 Hz), as indexed by increased midfrontal theta power. We ex...
Selective attention is a key mechanism to monitor conflict-related processing and behaviour, by amplifying task-relevant processing and inhibiting task-irrelevant information. Conflict monitoring and resolution is typically associated with brain oscillatory power increase in the theta frequency range (3-8 Hz), as indexed by increased midfrontal the...
Stopping an already initiated action is crucial for human everyday behavior and empirical evidence points toward the prefrontal cortex playing a key role in response inhibition. Two regions that have been consistently implicated in response inhibition are the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the more superior region of the dorsolateral prefro...
Journal of Cognition, 4(1), 15
To examine influences of context changes between encoding and retrieval of motor sequences, we varied a number of encoding and retrieval features in a two lists approach. Participants consecutively learned two sets of three-finger movements at two different computer working places, all enacted with fingers of the rig...
Spatial distance of response keys has been shown to have an effect on nonspatial tasks in that performance improved if the spatial distance increased. Comparably, spatial distance of stimulus features has been shown to have a performance-improving effect in a (partly) spatial task. Here, we combined these two findings in the same task to test for t...
Executing a response results in bindings between features of present stimuli and features of the response (Hommel et al., 2001). Repetition of any of these features can then retrieve other integrated features, thus affecting following action (binding effects). The important role of feature bindings in action control is widely recognized in the lite...
Optimal mental workload plays a key role in driving performance. Thus, driver-assisting systems that automatically adapt to a drivers current mental workload via brain–computer interfacing might greatly contribute to traffic safety. To design economic brain computer interfaces that do not compromise driver comfort, it is necessary to identify brain...
It is assumed that stimuli and responses to them are integrated in an event file and further when all or some of these features repeat the previous event-file will be retrieved. The Binding and Retrieval in Action Control framework (Frings, C., Hommel, B., Koch, I., Rothermund, K., Dignath, D., Giesen, C., Kiesel, A., Kunde, W., Mayr, S., Moeller,...
The intensity of a stimulus has been found to have a distinct impact upon response processes (e.g., response speed, response force, & response selection). For instance, reaction times are faster to bright than to dim stimuli (e.g., Kohfeld, 1971). In the present study, we investigated the possible influence of stimulus intensity on binding processe...
As digital gaming has grown from a leisure activity into a competitive endeavor with college scholarships, celebrity, and large prize pools at stake, players search for ways to enhance their performance, including through coaching, training, and employing tools that yield a performance advantage. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a...
The investigation of self‐prioritization via a simple matching paradigm represents a new way of enhancing our knowledge about the processing of self‐relevant content and also increases our understanding of the self‐concept itself. By associating formerly neutral material with the self, and assessing the resulting prioritization of these newly forme...
Stimulus and response features are integrated together in episodic traces. A repetition of any of the features results in the retrieval of the entire episodic trace, including the response features. Such S–R bindings have been suggested to account for different priming effects like repetition priming, negative priming and so on. Previous studies on...
When responding to two events in a sequence, the repetition or change of stimuli and the accompanying response can benefit or interfere with response execution: Full repetition leads to benefits in performance while partial repetition leads to costs. Additionally, even distractor stimuli can be integrated with a response, and can, upon repetition,...
Multisensory processing is required for the perception of the majority of everyday objects and events. In the case of irrelevant stimuli, the multisensory processing of features is widely assumed to be modulated by attention. In the present study, we investigated whether the processing of audiovisual distractors is also modulated by higher-order co...
Action planning can be construed as the temporary binding of features of perceptual action effects. While previous research demonstrated binding for task-relevant, body-related effect features, the role of task-irrelevant or environment-related effect features in action planning is less clear. Here, we studied whether task-relevance or body-related...
The amino acid tyrosine is the precursor of dopamine and norepinephrine and can be administered as a dietary supplement. Previous studies have demonstrated that the intake of tyrosine can enhance both working memory performance and response inhibition (e.g., Colzato et al., Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 72013; Colzato et al., Neuropsycholog...
In this study, we analysed Evaluative Conditioning (EC) with a recently introduced S-R paradigm [Blask et al., 2016 Blask, K. , Frings, C. , & Walther, E. (2016). Doing is for feeling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 145 (10), 1263–1268. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/xge0000211 [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. D...
Resolving cognitive interference is central for successful everyday cognition and behavior. The Stroop task is a classical measure of cognitive interference. In this task, participants have to resolve interference on a trial-by-trial basis and performance is also influenced by the trial history, as reflected in sequence effects. Previous neuroimagi...
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex has been shown to be a key functional network within the middle frontal gyrus in regards to working memory processing. A commonly used paradigm in this line of research is the n-back task. The standard variant of the task requires participants to state whether the current item has been presented n trials prior (or...
Several factors guide our attention and the way we process our surroundings. In that regard, there is an ongoing debate about the way we are influenced by stimuli that have a particular self-relevance for us. Recent findings suggest that self-relevance does not always capture our attention automatically. Instead, an interpretation of the literature...
Charles W. Eriksen dedicated much of his research career to the field of cognitive psychology, investigating human information processing in those situations that required selection between competing stimuli. Together with his wife Barbara, he introduced the flanker task, which became one of the standard experimental tasks used by researchers to in...
When facing particular combinations of stimuli and responses, people create temporary event files integrating the corresponding stimulus and response features. Repeating one or more of these features retrieves the entire event file, which impairs performance if not all features repeat (partial-repetition costs). We studied how durable event files a...
A central function of the human brain is prediction. Influential theoretical views suggest that we form predictions about forthcoming sensory outcomes that follow from our own actions and that anticipation of these outcomes is fundamental for action control. However little is known about how predicted outcomes are represented at the neural level. W...
Actions can be investigated by using sequential priming tasks, in which participants respond to prime and probe targets (sometimes accompanied by distractors). Facilitation and interference from prime to probe are measured by repeating, changing, or partially repeating features or responses between prime and probe. According to the action control l...
If a target stimulus is presented together with a response irrelevant distractor stimulus, both stimuli can be encoded together with the response in an event file [see Hommel (Trends Cogn Sci 8:494–500, 2004)]. The repetition of the distractor can retrieve the encoded response. This kind of distractor-based retrieval is an important mechanism in ac...
Binding theories postulate short-term episodic traces within which stimulus and response features are integrated. These episodic traces can influence actions by facilitating or interfering with responding. Although the existence of such short-term episodic traces has been well documented, the role of location and the organization of bindings within...
After an object disappears, the vanishing point is shifted in the direction of motion, a phenomenon known as representational momentum. The present study focused on the relationship between motion information and spatial location in a crossmodal setting. In two visuotactile experiments, we studied how motion information in one sensory modality affe...
The head fake in basketball describes an action during which players gaze in one direction, but pass the ball to the opposite direction. This deception can be modeled in the lab as a kind of interference resolution task. In such tasks, the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) has been shown to play a critical role. In the present study, tra...
Human action control relies on representations that integrate perception and action, but the relevant research is scattered over various experimental paradigms and the theorizing is overly paradigm-specific. To overcome this obstacle we propose BRAC (binding and retrieval in action control), an overarching, integrative framework that accounts for a...
The effect of stress on working memory has been traced back to a modulation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). We investigated the effects of neuromodulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) after exposure to psychosocial stress through the Socially Evaluated Cold Pressure Test (SECPT). The hypothesis was that neuromodulation intera...
The forward testing effect (FTE) refers to the finding that testing of previously studied information enhances memory for subsequently studied other information. Previous research demonstrated that the FTE is a robust phenomenon that generalizes across different materials and populations. The present study examined whether the FTE is robust under a...
Negative Priming (NP) refers to the phenomenon that responses towards previously ignored stimuli, as compared to new stimuli, are impaired. That is, NP is reflected in the performance on the probe display of a prime–probe sequence. NP is established in vision, audition and touch. In the current study, we presented participants with auditory, visual...
Previous functional near‐infrared spectroscopy studies using the Eriksen flanker task, in contrast to functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, revealed the quite puzzling finding of an inverted conflict effect, i.e. greater middle and superior frontal activation in response compatible than in response incompatible trials. However, since neith...
Beta power increase has been suggested to be an electrophysiological marker of response inhibition during voluntary action stopping. We examined whether beta power increase accompanies inhibition in human motor memory, focusing the phenomenon of retrieval-induced forgetting that has been assumed to be the consequence of inhibition in memory. Wherea...
BACKGROUND
A lack in the ability to inhibit prepotent responses, or, more generally, a lack of impulse control, is associated with several disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and schizophrenia as well as general damage to the prefrontal cortex. The Stop-Signal Task (SST) is a reliable and established measure of respons...