Stimulus-response compatibility with wheel-rotation responses: will an incompatible response coding be used when a compatible coding is possible?

Three experiments were conducted in which subjects responded to left-right tones with clockwise-counterclockwise rotations of a steering wheel using one of two stimulus-response assignments. When the hands were at the bottom of the wheel, where hand movement is opposite to wheel movement, subjects coded responses according to the frame that yielded a compatible mapping when the instructions did not emphasize either hand or wheel movements (Experiment 1). When instructions emphasized hand movements, responses were coded relative to the hand-referenced frame (Experiment 2), and when the wheel controlled a visual cursor, responses were coded relative to a cursor-referenced frame (Experiment 3). Coding with respect to these frames occurred even when the resulting mapping was incompatible.