Red and green and the mind in between: How context modulates feature relations in action-perception integration.

Action control theories assume an integration of all stimulus and response features of an action episode into a so-called event file. The repetition of any of the integrated features in a subsequent action episode retrieves the whole event file. Depending on the (partial) match/mismatch of current and retrieved event files, performance is improved. Central to this idea is the evaluation of current and previous features (or their mental representations) as repeated or changed. However, this evaluation is not absolute but depends on various internal and external factors. In the current study, the evaluation was influenced externally by the context. In one experiment (n = 63), a response (R) was given during the presentation of two different red hues (distractor stimuli S). Stimulus-response binding effects were stronger when the background color during the task was a third red hue compared to when the background color was green. This result indicates that the relation between the red hues (rather change or rather repetition) differed because of a change in the background color, which served as a contextual reference and caused a merging or separation of the red hues' mental representations. This finding demonstrates high flexibility in feature processing, showing how human action control processes adapt to changing environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).