Binding and Retrieval in Action Control

Its two core mechanisms – binding and retrieval of feature codes – explain a variety of observations in basic psychological experiments within a compact and parsimonious framework.

[1] Many influential theories have proposed that the human cognitive system represents events in terms of distributed feature codes.

For instance, color and shape of an object in the visual field give rise to neural activity in distinct brain areas.

Disentangling these separable contributions of binding and retrieval is a major goal of current work inspired by the BRAC framework.

Corresponding binding and retrieval effects have been observed in a range of experimental setups, including prime-probe experiments[3][4] and sequential choice reaction tasks.

Figure 1. Graphical summary of the BRAC framework. Click to enlarge.
Figure 2. Idealized results from a behavioral experiment that measures performance (reaction times) in successive choice responses as a function of response sequence and stimulus sequence for two successive responses. Click to enlarge.