Abstract: The Simon effect arises if a spatial response feature is used to represent one or more responses in working memory. The previous studies found that the go/no-go task in which stimuli were the same as the standard Simon task can generate Simon effect only when the participants used the spatial feature to represent response by referring to the location of the nonresponding hand. However, the participants can select ?exibly the reference frame for action according to sensory context. Further, the reference frame determined whether spatial anatomical code or the cognitive spatial code is used to represent the one response in the go/no-go task. Thus, we suppose that sensory context of the nonresponding hand may affect the nature of the Simon effect in the go/no-go task. If the spatial anatomical code is used to represent the response, then the visuomotor Simon effect would arise; if the cognitive spatial code is used to represent the one response, then the cognitive Simon effect would arise. To explore the supposition, we implemented three experiments. In the experiments, the stimuli were red or green squares presented in left and right physical locations, participants were instructed to perform a spatial response to one color, and refrain from responding to another color. But, the status of the nonresponding hand were different: In Experiment 1, the participants were only required to press one key by index finger of one hand and put the nonresponding hand on any place except for the desk and keyboard; in Experiment 2, the nonresponding hand was asked to put on a fixed location of the desktop; in Experiment 3, the subjects were instructed to put their nonresponding hand on a fixed key (e.g., if the response key was “Z” then put the nonresponding hand on “/”, and vice versa). Moreover, if the Simon effects were obtained in the experiments, we would further explore the different mechanism of Simon effects with reaction time (RT) distribution analysis. To that end, the correct RTs of each participant are ‘‘vincentized’’ in separate experimental condition, i.e., rank-ordered RTs are divided into equally sized quantiles, and the mean RT was grouped into equally spaced quantiles. The results showed: in Experiment 1, we didn’t obtain the Simon effect, F(1,21) = .39, p = .54; in Experiment 2, we obtained a significant Simon effect, F(1,20) = 8.48, p < .01; in Experiment 3, we also acquired a significant Simon effect, F(1,25) = 10.93, p < .01. Moreover, the RT distribution analysis showed that the size of Simon effect in Experiment 2 was rather stable from the first to fourth quantile but disappeared in the fifth quantile, and that in Experiment 3 increased from the first to the fifth quantile. The results demonstrated that representing the response by the spatial feature is the prerequisite for the generation of the Simon effect. Moreover, the results implied that the nature of the Simon effect relied on the sensory context of the nonresponding hand.

Key words: Simon effect, RT distribution analysis, visuomotor Simon effect, cognitive Simon effect

摘要： 为了探讨非反应手对标准Simon任务改装的go/no-go任务的影响，被试只对其中一种颜色进行按键反应，通过指导语来操控非反应手的状态，结果发现：(1)实验一中当不提醒非反应手如何放置时，不会产生Simon效应；(2) 实验二中要求非反应手放在固定的桌面位置上，产生了视觉运动Simon效应，其随反应时的增大而减小；(3) 实验三中要求非反应手放在固定的非反应键上，却产生了认知Simon效应，其随反应时的增大而增大。这说明非反应手的状态影响Simon效应的产生及其性质。

关键词: Simon效应, 反应时分布分析, 视觉运动Simon 效应, 认知Simon效应