Remote binding counts: measuring distractor-response binding effects online

Abstract

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 of these mechanisms, it seems to be reasonable to test whether they can be measured outside of a formal laboratory situation. Here we ran an online version of the distractor-response binding task reaching participants via crowdsourcing. Distractor-response binding effects were significant in this setup showing that basic mechanisms of feature binding and retrieval indeed influence human action in less formal situations. Besides arguing for the generality and robustness of the effect practical implications are discussed.