Spatial S-R compatibility: positional instruction vs. compatibility instruction.

Subjects had to perform both in a classical spatial compatibility experiment where they were instructed to press a right or left button to a right or left stimulus ('positional instruction'), and in a variant, where they had to give a spatially compatible or incompatible response depending on the color of the stimulus ('compatibility instruction'). The result shows the normal advantage of compatible over incompatible responses for the experiment with positional instruction whereas the spatial compatibility effect completely disappeared for the experiment with compatibility instruction. This supports a translation hypothesis and speaks against an automatic activation hypothesis of spatial stimulus-response compatibility.