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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0PLOS One

Stimulus-hand proximity shapes conflict processing by task-dependent modulation of distractor activation

  • Ruben Ellinghaus1
  • Aldo Sommer2
  • Rolf Ulrich3
  • Rico Fischer2
  • Roman Liepelt1
  1. 1Chair of Cognitive Psychology: Judgment, Decision Making, Action, Faculty of Psychology, FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
  2. 2Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
  3. 3Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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Abstract

Placing the hands near stimuli modulates interference effects in conflict tasks. Liepelt and Fischer (2016) found that the direction of this near-hand effect depends on task demands: In a complex number-categorization Simon task, conflict was reduced when visual stimuli appeared near the hand, whereas in a simpler color-discrimination Simon task, conflict increased. They attributed this result pattern to a flexible attentional weighting of bottom-up vs. top-down processing. The present study specified and tested this hypothesis by applying the Diffusion Model for Conflict (DMC) to their data. The DMC assumes two parallel evidence accumulation processes: a transient distractor-based and a constant target-based diffusion process, which combine additively to drive response selection. Across two experiments, model fits revealed that stimulus-hand proximity selectively modulated the strength of distractor-based activation, while other parameters remained relatively stable across hand conditions. Crucially, this modulation mirrored the behavioral pattern: greater distractor activation near the hands in the color task producing increased conflict, but reduced activation near the hands in the number task leading to reduced conflict. These findings suggest that conflict is shaped by stimulus-hand proximity through selective adjustment of distractor-based processing, not target-based processing: location signals are typically amplified near the hands but down-regulated under higher cognitive demands. The results further illustrate how embodied manipulations can selectively impact specific processing components as mapped within a formal decision-making model.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{ellinghaus2026stimulushand,
  title = {{Stimulus-hand proximity shapes conflict processing by task-dependent modulation of distractor activation}},
  author = {Ruben Ellinghaus and Aldo Sommer and Rolf Ulrich and Rico Fischer and Roman Liepelt},
  journal = {PLOS One},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0361060},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0361060},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Stimulus-hand proximity shapes conflict processing by task-dependent modulation of distractor activation
AU  - Ruben Ellinghaus
AU  - Aldo Sommer
AU  - Rolf Ulrich
AU  - Rico Fischer
AU  - Roman Liepelt
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/03
JO  - PLOS One
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pone.0361060
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0361060
AB  - Placing the hands near stimuli modulates interference effects in conflict tasks. Liepelt and Fischer (2016) found that the direction of this near-hand effect depends on task demands: In a complex number-categorization Simon task, conflict was reduced when visual stimuli appeared near the hand, whereas in a simpler color-discrimination Simon task, conflict increased. They attributed this result pattern to a flexible attentional weighting of bottom-up vs. top-down processing. The present study specified and tested this hypothesis by applying the Diffusion Model for Conflict (DMC) to their data. The DMC assumes two parallel evidence accumulation processes: a transient distractor-based and a constant target-based diffusion process, which combine additively to drive response selection. Across two experiments, model fits revealed that stimulus-hand proximity selectively modulated the strength of distractor-based activation, while other parameters remained relatively stable across hand conditions. Crucially, this modulation mirrored the behavioral pattern: greater distractor activation near the hands in the color task producing increased conflict, but reduced activation near the hands in the number task leading to reduced conflict. These findings suggest that conflict is shaped by stimulus-hand proximity through selective adjustment of distractor-based processing, not target-based processing: location signals are typically amplified near the hands but down-regulated under higher cognitive demands. The results further illustrate how embodied manipulations can selectively impact specific processing components as mapped within a formal decision-making model.
SN  - 1932-6203
ER  -