Task Complexity and Manual Reaction Times in People Who Stutter

1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 708-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
William G. Webster ◽  
C. R. Lynne Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Group Response ◽  
Response Alternatives ◽  
Task Conditions ◽  
Decision Complexity

The study was designed to test the hypothesis that manual reaction time differences between people who stutter and those who do not reflect the information processing complexity of the task. The study focused on decision complexity in a reaction time paradigm. One manipulation involved increasing the number of response alternatives The second involved the spatial contiguity of signal and response locus. Twenty-four adult stutterers and 24 nonstutterers were compared with respect to response initiation and completion times on the various task conditions. Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no significant Group x Complexity interaction in the analysis of either response measure for either complexity manipulation. Stutterers were slower than nonstutterers overall, but with increasing decision complexity, the group response times paralleled one another. It is concluded that whatever response planning and organization deficit there may be in people who stutter, it is independent of decision complexity but may be evident in manipulations of response complexity defined in terms of spatial and temporal coordination.

Temperament and attentional focus: Reaction time indicators of bias and cue salience

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-297
Author(s):  
Elizabeth R. Spievak ◽  
Anne M. Murtagh
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Trait Anxiety ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Personality Variables ◽  
Cue Salience ◽  
Trial Participants

This study was designed to test and extend prior work that linked personality variables, incentive cues and target detection reaction times. Participants completed a task in which they believed they might gain or lose points, depending upon the target location and their reaction time. After each trial, participants received a randomly generated positive or negative "feedback" message. Those higher in neuroticism showed shorter reaction times on trials following positive feedback. Participants higher in neuroticism and trait anxiety and those with lower scores for self-esteem and venturesomeness were more attentive to point-loss cues. Response times were longer for those who scored higher in trait anxiety and lower in self-esteem. Implications for understanding individual differences in attention and feedback response are discussed.

scholarly journals Learning to search. The importance of eye movements in the decrease of response times during a visual choice reaction time task

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kroll ◽  
Monika Mak ◽  
Jerzy Samochowiec
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Choice Reaction Time ◽  
Visual Target ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Reaction Time Task ◽  
Visual Tasks ◽  
Target Searching

Reaction times are often used as an indicator of the efficiency of the processes in thecentral nervous system. While extensive research has been conducted on the possibleresponse time correlates, the role of eye movements in visual tasks is yet unclear. Here wereport data to support the role of eye movements during visual choice reaction time training.Participant performance, reaction times, and total session duration improved. Eyemovementsshowed expected changes in saccade amplitude and resulted in improvementin visual target searching.

scholarly journals Executive control by fronto-parietal activity explains counterintuitive decision behavior in complex value-based decision-making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teppei Matsui ◽  
Yoshiki Hattori ◽  
Kaho Tsumura ◽  
Ryuta Aoki ◽  
Masaki Takeda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Behavioral Effect ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Probabilistic Uncertainty ◽  
Task Conditions

In real life, humans make decisions by taking into account multiple independent factors, such as delay and probability. Cognitive psychology suggests that cognitive control mechanisms play a key role when facing such complex task conditions. However, in value-based decision-making, it still remains unclear to what extent cognitive control mechanisms become essential when the task condition is complex. In this study, we investigated decision-making behaviors and underlying neural mechanisms using a multifactor gambling task where participants simultaneously considered probability and delay. Decision-making behavior in the multifactor task was modulated by both probability and delay. The behavioral effect of probability was stronger than delay, consistent with previous studies. Furthermore, in a subset of conditions that recruited fronto-parietal activations, reaction times were paradoxically elongated despite lower probabilistic uncertainty. Notably, such a reaction time elongation did not occur in control tasks involving single factors. Meta-analysis of brain activations suggested an association between the paradoxical increase of reaction time and strategy switching. Together, these results suggest a novel aspect of complex value-based decision-makings that is strongly influenced by fronto-parietal cognitive control.

scholarly journals Minimal mindreaders let spinning dogs lie: New evidence for the dual-process account of human mindreading

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Katheryn Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Identity Component ◽  
Time Patterns ◽  
Efficient Processing

<p>Five experiments investigated evidence for a dual-process account of mindreading (Apperly, 2010). This account is motivated by two puzzles: First, why is it that three-year-olds fail standard false-belief tests when looking patterns infer that infants are sensitive to others’ false beliefs? Secondly, why is adult mindreading sometimes slow and effortful, and at other times fast and effortless? The seemingly contradictory observations may be explained by drawing upon two relatively distinct mindreading abilities: ‘Efficient’ processing supports precocious infant performances in non-verbal tasks and fast-paced social interaction in adults, while the later developing ‘flexible’ processing permits full blown understanding of beliefs and facilitates correct verbal responding in standard false-belief tests. Evidence for this theory can be sought by exploiting the idea that there are ‘signature limits’ to the type of information that can be efficiently processed.  One conjecture is that representations underpinning efficient belief-tracking relate agents to objects, leading to the prediction that efficient processing cannot handle false-beliefs involving identity. Experiments 1 and 2 used a novel action-prediction paradigm to determine if adults’ reaction-time patterns differed between two false-belief tasks, one involving a standard change-of-location scenario, and one which also incorporated an identity component. The findings revealed equivalent flexible processing across both tasks. However, there were distinct reaction-time profiles between the tasks such that efficient belief-tracking was only observed in the change-of-location task. The absence of efficient processing in the task incorporating an identity component supports the conjecture that efficient belief-tracking is limited to relational, rather than propositional attitudes.  A second conjecture is that representations underpinning efficient belief-tracking either do not specify agents’ locations or do not specify objects’ orientations. This leads to the prediction that efficient belief-tracking alone will not yield expectations about agents’ perspectives. In a novel object-detection paradigm, Experiments 3 to 5 tested the extent to which adults efficiently tracked the belief of a passive bystander in two closely-matched but conceptually distinct tasks. In a task involving homogenous objects, reaction times were involuntarily influenced by the presence of the bystander. By contrast, in a second task in which the object could be differently perceived depending on where the agent was located in relation to that object, the presence of the agent did not influence adults’ response times, supporting the second conjecture.</p>

scholarly journals Minimal mindreaders let spinning dogs lie: New evidence for the dual-process account of human mindreading

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Katheryn Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Identity Component ◽  
Time Patterns ◽  
Efficient Processing

<p>Five experiments investigated evidence for a dual-process account of mindreading (Apperly, 2010). This account is motivated by two puzzles: First, why is it that three-year-olds fail standard false-belief tests when looking patterns infer that infants are sensitive to others’ false beliefs? Secondly, why is adult mindreading sometimes slow and effortful, and at other times fast and effortless? The seemingly contradictory observations may be explained by drawing upon two relatively distinct mindreading abilities: ‘Efficient’ processing supports precocious infant performances in non-verbal tasks and fast-paced social interaction in adults, while the later developing ‘flexible’ processing permits full blown understanding of beliefs and facilitates correct verbal responding in standard false-belief tests. Evidence for this theory can be sought by exploiting the idea that there are ‘signature limits’ to the type of information that can be efficiently processed.  One conjecture is that representations underpinning efficient belief-tracking relate agents to objects, leading to the prediction that efficient processing cannot handle false-beliefs involving identity. Experiments 1 and 2 used a novel action-prediction paradigm to determine if adults’ reaction-time patterns differed between two false-belief tasks, one involving a standard change-of-location scenario, and one which also incorporated an identity component. The findings revealed equivalent flexible processing across both tasks. However, there were distinct reaction-time profiles between the tasks such that efficient belief-tracking was only observed in the change-of-location task. The absence of efficient processing in the task incorporating an identity component supports the conjecture that efficient belief-tracking is limited to relational, rather than propositional attitudes.  A second conjecture is that representations underpinning efficient belief-tracking either do not specify agents’ locations or do not specify objects’ orientations. This leads to the prediction that efficient belief-tracking alone will not yield expectations about agents’ perspectives. In a novel object-detection paradigm, Experiments 3 to 5 tested the extent to which adults efficiently tracked the belief of a passive bystander in two closely-matched but conceptually distinct tasks. In a task involving homogenous objects, reaction times were involuntarily influenced by the presence of the bystander. By contrast, in a second task in which the object could be differently perceived depending on where the agent was located in relation to that object, the presence of the agent did not influence adults’ response times, supporting the second conjecture.</p>

Analyzing Response Time Distributions

2011 ◽  
Vol 219 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene A. Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Prospective Memory ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Reaction Time Data ◽  
Fundamental Relation ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Experimental Conditions

The analysis of response times from prospective memory experiments has resulted in multiple theoretical propositions about the role of attention in prospective memory. Extant theories of prospective memory are in good agreement that attention is necessary for detecting intention-related cues. However, these theories were primarily formulated to describe differences in mean reaction times across experimental conditions. While this approach has been fruitful for establishing a fundamental relation between attention and prospective memory, reaction time modeling techniques can be applied to prospective memory data to better constrain theorizing. In the current work, the ex-Gaussian distribution is fit to data from a prospective memory task. The results from this analysis suggest that modeling reaction time data has the potential for clarifying our understanding of the role of attention in prospective memory.

scholarly journals Exploring changes in processing speed and intraindividual variability in youth following sports-related concussion

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 205970021983958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie L Green ◽  
Michelle L Keightley ◽  
Nancy J Lobaugh ◽  
Deirdre R Dawson ◽  
Alex Mihailidis
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Coefficient Of Variation ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Sports Participation ◽  
Intraindividual Variability ◽  
Return To Sports ◽  
Mean Reaction Time

Background Concussion represents a growing concern in sports participation for adults and youth alike. Studies exploring the neurocognitive sequelae of concussion, such as speed of processing typically compare mean reaction time scores to a control group. Intraindividual variability measures the consistency of reaction times between trials and has been previously explored in adults post-concussion. Some adult studies show increased variability following injury. Developmentally youth show higher intraindividual variability than adults, which may put them at higher risk of increased intraindividual variability change post-concussion. Exploring intraindividual variability may provide additional insight into fluctuating performance reported following injury. Despite preliminary findings of slowed reaction time in youth, a pre-/post-concussion comparison of intraindividual variability of reaction time has not been explored. Objective To describe and compare pre- and post-concussion measures of processing speed and intraindividual variability in youth. Methods A pre-/post-concussion design was used to compare mean reaction time and the coefficient of variation before and after sports-related concussion in 18 youth athletes aged 10–14 years using verbal and nonverbal working memory tasks. Pre-/post-concussion reaction time and coefficient of variation were compared using t-tests. Results The coefficient of variation for nonverbal working memory was significantly higher following concussion, but no changes in average reaction time were found. Conclusions Preliminary findings suggest that average response times are unchanged following concussion, but the fluctuation across response times is more variable during a nonverbal working memory task in youth. Increased variability in speed of reaction times could have implications for safe return to sports and reduced academic performance.

scholarly journals Adaptation to hand-tapping affects sensory processing of numerosity directly: evidence from reaction times and confidence

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1927) ◽  
pp. 20200801
Author(s):  
Paula A. Maldonado Moscoso ◽  
Guido M. Cicchini ◽  
Roberto Arrighi ◽  
David C. Burr
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Motor Adaptation ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
General Technique ◽  
Hand Tapping ◽  
Motor Actions ◽  
Response Biases

Like most perceptual attributes, the perception of numerosity is susceptible to adaptation, both to prolonged viewing of spatial arrays and to repeated motor actions such as hand-tapping. However, the possibility has been raised that adaptation may reflect response biases rather than modification of sensory processing. To disentangle these two possibilities, we studied visual and motor adaptation of numerosity perception while measuring confidence and reaction times. Both sensory and motor adaptation robustly distorted numerosity estimates, and these shifts in perceived numerosity were accompanied by similar shifts in confidence and reaction-time distributions. After adaptation, maximum uncertainty and slowest response-times occurred at the point of subjective (rather than physical) equality of the matching task, suggesting that adaptation acts directly on the sensory representation of numerosity, before the decisional processes. On the other hand, making reward response-contingent, which also caused robust shifts in the psychometric function, caused no significant shifts in confidence or reaction-time distributions. These results reinforce evidence for shared mechanisms that encode the quantity of both internally and externally generated events, and advance a useful general technique to test whether contextual effects like adaptation and serial dependence really affect sensory processing.

scholarly journals Dual-Task in Large Perceptual Space Reveals Subclinical Hemispatial Neglect

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (10) ◽  
pp. 993-1005
Author(s):  
Sanna Villarreal ◽  
Matti Linnavuo ◽  
Raimo Sepponen ◽  
Outi Vuori ◽  
Hanna Jokinen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Patient Group ◽  
Functional Disability ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Hemispatial Neglect ◽  
Dual Tasks ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Large Screen ◽  
The Right

AbstractObjective:Both clinically observable and subclinical hemispatial neglect are related to functional disability. The aim of the present study was to examine whether increasing task complexity improves sensitivity in assessment and whether it enables the identification of subclinical neglect.Method:We developed and compared two computerized dual-tasks, a simpler and a more complex one, and presented them on a large, 173 × 277 cm screen. Participants in the study included 40 patients with unilateral stroke in either the left hemisphere (LH patient group, n = 20) or the right hemisphere (RH patient group, n = 20) and 20 healthy controls. In addition to the large-screen tasks, all participants underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. The Bells Test was used as a traditional paper-and-pencil cancellation test to assess neglect.Results:RH patients made significantly more left hemifield omission errors than controls in both large-screen tasks. LH patients’ omissions did not differ significantly from those of the controls in either large-screen task. No significant group differences were observed in the Bells Test. All groups’ reaction times were significantly slower in the more complex large-screen task compared to the simpler one. The more complex large-screen task also produced significantly slower reactions to stimuli in the left than in the right hemifield in all groups.Conclusions:The present results suggest that dual-tasks presented on a large screen sensitively reveal subclinical neglect in stroke. New, sensitive, and ecologically valid methods are needed to evaluate subclinical neglect.

scholarly journals Machinery Failure Approach and Spectral Analysis to Study the Reaction Time Dynamics over Consecutive Visual Stimuli: An Entropy-Based Model

Mathematics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1979 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel E. Iglesias-Martínez ◽  
Moisés Hernaiz-Guijarro ◽  
Juan Carlos Castro-Palacio ◽  
Pedro Fernández-de-Córdoba ◽  
J. M. Isidro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spectral Analysis ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Predictive Diagnosis ◽  
Time Dynamics ◽  
Mean Time Between Failures ◽  
Time Between Failures ◽  
Mean Time

The reaction times of individuals over consecutive visual stimuli have been studied using an entropy-based model and a failure machinery approach. The used tools include the fast Fourier transform and a spectral entropy analysis. The results indicate that the reaction times produced by the independently responding individuals to visual stimuli appear to be correlated. The spectral analysis and the entropy of the spectrum yield that there are features of similarity in the response times of each participant and among them. Furthermore, the analysis of the mistakes made by the participants during the reaction time experiments concluded that they follow a behavior which is consistent with the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) model, widely used in industry for the predictive diagnosis of electrical machines and equipment.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document