The Influence of Task Instruction on Action Coding: Constraint Setting or Direct Coding?

In 3 experiments, the authors manipulated response instructions for 2 concurrently performed tasks. Specifically, the authors' instructions described left and right keypresses on a manual task either as left versus right or as blue versus green keypresses and required either "left" versus "right" or "blue" versus "green" concurrent verbalizations. When instructions for responses on the 2 tasks were in terms of location (Experiment 1) or color (Experiments 2a and 2b), then compatible responses on the tasks were faster than incompatible responses. However, when the verbal task required "left" versus "right" responses but instructions for manual keypresses referred to blue versus green (Experiments 3a and 3b), then no response compatibility effects were observed. These results suggest that response labels used in the instruction directly determine the codes that are used to control responding.