Testing order affects how

quickly people react to

interfering sensory feedback.

Exploration of ordering effects in psychophysical assessment

Noah Mesa & Dan Blustein

INTRO RESULTS Measured Order Effects

Psychophysical assessments are a cornerstone of perceptual The “Measured Order Effects” graph shows that participants have
research and their importance as clinical measures is growing. faster reaction times at congruent trials than incongruent ones
One such test, the cross-modal congruency task, quantifies the supporting previous findings1,2,3. Trial pairs for which congruency
degree to which participants have incorporated feedback into is switched showed slower reaction times than when congruency
their body schema. A participant holds a device with a is consistent between two trials. The linear regression further
vibrating motor and an LED light on the left and right side. supports this conclusion as congruency combinations are
The participant must identify the side on which they feel somewhat predictive of reaction time (Adjusted R2 = 0.242).
vibration while ignoring the LEDs that may be presented Using CC as the baseline, the model can be expressed as:
together with the vibration (congruent) or on the opposing
side (incongruent). The reaction time on incongruent trials is Reaction Time = B0(CI) + B1(IC) + B2(II) + B3
higher than that on congruent trials due to feedback
interference. The difference in reaction times on incongruent where B0 = -0.506 (p < 0.001), B1 = 1.056 (p < 0.001), B2 = 0.057
vs. congruent trials is the cross-modal congruency effect (p =0.071), and B3 = 0.953 (p < 0.001).
(CCE) score. However, recent experiments have suggested
that the CCE score is biased. One source of such bias could be Multiple linear regression
the order in which the different types of trials are presented. DISCUSSION performance
Based on the above data, the CCE score exhibits the congruency
METHODS sequence effect like the Stroop task4. For future statistical
analysis, we will use a multi-level mixed effects design to further
We analyzed CCE trial data from Blustein et al. (2019) 1 using
control cofounding variables and quantify order effects more
MATLAB software. Twelve participants completed the CCE
precisely. Additionally, we will run a CCE experiment which
task for five consecutive days. Each day consisted of eight
varies the percentage of congruent and incongruent trials to see if
blocks, and each block contained 65 trials – though the first
the congruency sequence effect can be mediated by participant
was omitted due to machine calibration error. We used the
expectations of future trials. Such a phenomena might partially
data from the final day of testing for each participant. Data
explain a previously described learning effect.1
were sorted into four groups representing the possible
congruency combinations for each pair of trials: Congruent
followed by congruent (CC); Incongruent followed by
Experimental Set-Up2
congruent (IC); Incongruent followed by Incongruent (II); and
Congruent followed by Incongruent (CI). Trials in which the
participant pressed the wrong pedal were removed from the
data. We calculated the z-scores of the reaction times for each
subject. We then used SPSS software to conduct a multiple
linear regression for reaction time based on the four
combinations of congruency for the current and previous trial.

1 Blustein, D., Gill, S., Wilson, A., & Sensinger, J. (2019). Crossmodal
congruency effect scores decrease with repeat test exposure. PeerJ. In
press.
2 Blustein, D., Wilson, A., & Sensinger, J. (2018). "Assessing the quality

of supplementary sensory feedback using the crossmodal congruency

task." Scientific Reports 8(1): 6203.
3 Spence, C., Pavani, F., & Driver, J. (2004). Spatial constraints on

visual-tactile cross-modal distractor congruency effects. Cognitive,

Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 4(2), 148-169.
4 Egner, T. (2007). Congruency sequence effects and cognitive control.

Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 7(4), 380-390.

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