Dr. Viola Mocke

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  Mocke, V., Kunde, W., & Rothermund, K. (2025). Anticipated effect valence retrieves matching past responses but does not modulate stimulus-response binding. Cognition and Emotion, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2025.2566308
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  Jamous, R., Mocke, V., Kunde, W., Pastötter, B., & Beste, C. (2025). Neurophysiological profiles underlying action withholding and action discarding. Cerebral Cortex, 35(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf026
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  Mocke, V., Kunde, W., & Schreiner, M. R. (2025). Compatible effects enhance short-term action-effect binding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001503
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  Schreiner, M. R., Mocke, V., & Kunde, W. (2025). The role of compatibility in long-term action-effect binding and effect memory. Memory & Cognition. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-025-01741-w
  • [ Abstract ]
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  Through interactions with our environment, we cause perceivable effects. In four experiments, we investigated long-term bindings between action and effect features in action-effect episodes, and how they are influenced by action-effect compatibility (AEC). In addition, we asked whether AEC facilitates memory for effects. In a prime phase, participants performed actions that resulted in an effect that comprised two features, namely a spatial feature (a linear movement or rotation of a box in a certain direction) and a certain identity of a word presented in that box. The effect movement or rotation was either spatially compatible or incompatible (or neutral, in Experiment 3) to the action. In a subsequent probe phase, we assessed whether participants were inclined to repeat the action when re-presented with the effect word. Memory for effect words was also tested. Results showed a higher propensity to repeat an action in Experiments 1--3, but not when the influence of spatial effect features was reduced (Experiment 4). Participants further tended to retrieve the spatial effect location in the neutral condition to a similar extent to in the compatible and incompatible condition in Experiment 3. These findings suggest long-term feature bindings after one-shot learning of action-effect episodes, although primarily due to bindings between different effect features rather than between action and effect features. AEC facilitated memory for effect words in a free recall test (Experiment 1) given repeated presentation of the effect word, but not in a recognition test (Experiments 2--4). Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

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  Arunkumar, M., Rothermund, K., Kunde, W., Mocke, V., & Giesen, C. G. (2024). Cling together, swing together? Assessing indirect retrieval of stimulus-response bindings for associated stimuli. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02525-0
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  When a stimulus is paired with a response, a stimulus-response (SR) binding (or event file) is formed. Subsequent stimulus repetition retrieves the SR binding from memory, which facilitates (impedes) performance when the same (a different) response is required. We aimed to explore whether indirect retrieval of SR bindings by a newly learnt associated stimulus is possible. Participants first went through a learning task to acquire novel stimulus-stimulus associations. The same stimulus pairs were then presented in a prime-probe task to assess direct and indirect retrieval effects. Participants responded by classifying word color in prime and probe trials. Probe words were either identical to prime words (test for direct retrieval) or corresponded to the associated stimulus (test for indirect retrieval) or were unrelated words (baseline). Independently of word relation, response relation (repetition vs. change) across prime and probe trials was manipulated. In two highly powered preregistered studies (total N = 260) using different types of stimulus associations, we obtained evidence for direct retrieval due to identical word repetition in the probe. Crucially, evidence for indirect retrieval upon presentation of an associated probe word was absent. Controlling for memory of each stimulus-stimulus association did not alter the findings. Our results show that indirect retrieval through newly acquired associations does not occur at the level of SR bindings, at least not for recently acquired stimulus-stimulus associations. Our study illustrates the scope of binding principles and highlights boundary conditions for the stimulus properties that can elicit automatic response retrieval.
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  Foerster, A., Mocke, V., Moeller, B., & Pfister, R. (2024). Guess what? Only correct choices forge immediate stimulus--response bindings in guessing scenarios. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-024-02950-2
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  A central mechanism of human action control is the prompt binding between actions and the stimuli provoking them. Perceiving the same stimuli again retrieves any bound responses, facilitating their execution. An open question is whether such binding and retrieval only emerges when stimulus--response rules are known upon taking action or also when agents are forced to guess and receive feedback about whether they were successful or not afterward. In two experiments, we tested the hypothesis that knowing rules before responding would boost binding between stimuli and responses during action-taking relative to guessing situations. Second, we assessed whether the content of the feedback matters for binding in that agents might use feedback to build correct stimulus--response bindings even for wrong guesses. We used a sequential prime-probe design to induce stimulus--response binding for prime responses that were either rule-based or guesses, and to measure retrieval of these bindings in response times and errors in the probe. Results indicate that binding and retrieval emerge for successful but not for wrong guesses. Binding effects for correct guesses were consistently small in effect size, suggesting that pre-established stimulus--response bindings from instructed rules might indeed boost binding when taking action.
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  Frings, C., Beste, C., Benini, E., Möller, M., Dignath, D., Giesen, C. G., Hommel, B., Kiesel, A., Koch, I., Kunde, W., Mayr, S., Mocke, V., Moeller, B., Münchau, A., Parmar, J., Pastötter, B., Pfister, R., Philipp, A. M., Qiu, R., … Schmalbrock, P. (2024). Consensus definitions of perception-action-integration in action control. Communications Psychology, 2, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-023-00050-9
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  The literature on action control is rife with differences in terminology. This consensus statement contributes shared definitions for perception-action integration concepts as informed by the framework of event coding.
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  Mocke, V., Beste, C., Pastötter, B., & Kunde, W. (2024). Action plan discarding leads to unbinding of action features. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001219
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  Mocke, V., Giesen, C. G., Arunkumar, M., & Kunde, W. (2024). My turn or yours? Me-you-distinction in feature-based action planning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001244
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  Mocke, V., Benini, E., Parmar, J., Schiltenwolf, M., & Kunde, W. (2023). What is behind partial repetition costs? Event-files do not fully occupy bound feature codes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 30, 1463–1474. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02253-x
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  Feature binding accounts state that features of perceived and produced events are bound into event-files. Performance while responding to an event is impaired when some, as opposed to all or none, of this event's features already belong to a previous event-file. While these partial repetition costs are generally considered to be indicators of feature binding, their cause is still unclear. Possibly, features are fully occupied when bound in an event-file and must be unbound in a time-consuming process before they can enter a novel event-file. In this study, we tested this code occupation account. Participants responded to the font color (target) of a word (distractor) by pressing one of three keys (response) while ignoring the word meaning. We measured partial repetition costs from prime to probe while introducing an intermediate trial. We compared sequences in which this intermediate trial did not repeat any prime features and sequences in which it repeated either the prime response or distractor. Partial repetition costs occurred in the probe, even when one (vs. none) of the prime features repeated in the intermediate trial, although significantly reduced. Thus, single bindings do not fully occupy feature codes. By ruling out a possible mechanism behind partial repetition costs, the present study contributes to the further specification of feature binding accounts.

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  Mocke, V., Holzmann, P., Hommel, B., & Kunde, W. (2022). Beyond Left and Right: Binding and Retrieval of Spatial and Temporal Features of Planned Actions. Journal of Cognition, 5(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.5334/joc.197
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  There is evidence that planning an action relies on binding codes of the relevant features of that action into an action plan. Such binding is indicated by the observation that planning a novel action is impaired if it shares some but not all features with another action that is held in memory for later execution. Most previous studies have focused on the binding of the spatial features left and right, which are particularly salient but not the only features of intentional body movements. In a series of four online experiments, we tested whether evidence for the binding of other (non)spatial features could also be found. Taken together, we indeed obtained evidence for the binding of temporal (short and long) and vertical (top and bottom) features, in addition to the commonly studied horizontal features (left and right). Yet, clear binding effects were mainly restricted to action features that remained uncertain up to the point the respective action had to be planned. These observations have important theoretical and methodical implications for the future studies of feature binding in action planning.

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  Mocke, V., Weller, L., Frings, C., Rothermund, K., & Kunde, W. (2020). Task relevance determines binding of effect features in action planning. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 82, 3811-3831. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02123-x
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  Action planning can be construed as the temporary binding of features of perceptual action effects. While previous research demonstrated binding for task-relevant, body-related effect features, the role of task-irrelevant or environment-related effect features in action planning is less clear. Here, we studied whether task-relevance or body-relatedness determines feature binding in action planning. Participants planned an action A, but before executing it initiated an intermediate action B. Each action relied on a body-related effect feature (index vs. middle finger movement) and an environment-related effect feature (cursor movement towards vs. away from a reference object). In Experiments 1 and 2, both effects were task-relevant. Performance in action B suffered from partial feature overlap with action A compared to full feature repetition or alternation, which is in line with binding of both features while planning action A. Importantly, this cost disappeared when all features were available but only body-related features were task-relevant (Experiment 3). When only the environment-related effect of action A was known in advance, action B benefitted when it aimed at the same (vs. a different) environment-related effect (Experiment 4). Consequently, the present results support the idea that task relevance determines whether binding of body-related and environment-related effect features takes place while the pre-activation of environment-related features without binding them primes feature-overlapping actions.