Timesharing, Ideomotor Compatibility, and Automaticity

This research concerns timesharing, the simultaneous performance of decision responses, and ideomotor (IM) compatibility, an arrangement in which the stimuli for a decision task resemble closely the stimuli generated as feedback from performing their required responses (Greenwald, 1970). (An illustration of IM compatibility is saying a word in response to hearing it.) IM compatibility is a special case of stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility, which is the more general category of task arrangements in which stimulus-response assignments are such as to facilitate the choice process. The present research explored the special characteristics of IM compatibility by examining timesharing efficiency for S-R compatible tasks that possess IM compatibility and ones that lack it.