Contextualization in perception and action

Abstract

It is proposed that cognitive representations of perceived and produced events (i e., perception and action codes) are contextualized by integrating them with codes of events they accompany. Supporting empirical evidence coming from several lines of research is reviewed. Indeed, there is converging evidence that stimuli become integrated with the response and the task they signal or accompany, so that re-viewing a stimulus tends to re-activate the previously related response and task. However, even though the integration of context events seems to occur automatically, it is affected by attentional control settings. A dimensional-priming model is suggested that can account for this interaction of automatic and attentional processes.