Open Science Tools / Pavlovia
4 minutes
The Simon Effect: Irrelevant Stimulus Location Biases Responses
In the Simon task participants respond to a non-spatial feature such as colour with a left or right key while the stimulus appears on the left or right of the screen. Responses are faster when the stimulus side matches the response side, even though location is irrelevant. The effect shows that stimulus position automatically primes a spatially corresponding response that must be overridden when it conflicts.