Catching Rulers and Reaction Times The reaction time of ten subjects was measured. The subjects were asked to catch a ruler ten times under five different conditions. The first condition measured the subject's simple reaction time. Each further condition added an additional stimulus and the reaction times were measured. There was a clear increase in reaction time with the addition of further stimulus, however the expected result of a steady increase in response time with the addition of each condition did not occur. The third condition displayed the highest response time where as the final condition displayed the second lowest (after condition 1). Assuming that no design problems in the experiment affected the results, it cannot be concluded that cognitive processes occur in separate order and do not overlap. Given the average reaction time of condition five was lower than condition three, some cognitive adaption may have occurred to lower the response time of the subjects or another reason may exist. One aspect not covered by the experiment, but important to the results was the error factor. Pre-guessing the experimenter caused a high rate of error, however it lowered the overall results. Why measure response times? As the world moves forward with technology, increasing pressure is placed upon humans to be quicker, be smarter and to operate more efficiently. As the population increases systems are being put in place to reduce incidences and accidents occurring. An example of this is a study conducted by Cameron, 1995 examining the influence of specific light colors, motor vehicle braking and the reaction time of the drivers to these specific clouds and conditions to avoid rear end collisions. Donders subtractive method holds that reaction times can be obtained by subtracting the simple reaction time; or subtracting type A from type B etc. (Cameron, 1995). Given this, it stands that the more stimulus provided (or thought processes required), the longer the response time of the subjects. This theory is tested in the measurement of ten responses to five test conditions. The trial provides preliminary information to participants and it is expected that reaction times will be shorter than if no information was supplied. (Rosenbaum, 1980.) Method Participants Ten participants were selected, four female and six male. Ages ranged from twenty-two to fifty three. All were fully able bodied and from English speaking backgrounds.
Participants had to meet certain criteria. They set up an interview day with the first hour being the section of the workshop that contained personal results such as scores on lower body strength and problem solving. Next they attended three 30-minute sessions that gave them information on topics such as nutrition and stress management. There were a group of participants that participated in the actual interview. They were taken to a private room where they sat at a table. Questions were asked and the person being interviewed would respond with an answer. The interview started with questions such as how life was living with FM and then questions became more detailed such as how to maintain
The experiments were quite simple, in that there was a seemingly harmless task to be performed, and the participants were instructed to choose the estimation of the lengths of a line when compared to two ...
Cognitive tempo/reflectivity v impulsivity: whether people prefer to take in and process information quickly or more slowly with greater or less informational input and greater /less concern for accuracy.
Today’s society appears to be constantly on the go. People seem to be pulled in multiple directions at once. Individuals never appear to have enough time to complete tasks that continually accumulate. It can be difficult to criticize someone that tries to make the most out every minute. Unfortunately, some of today’s drivers show a lack of judgment and trying to perform other tasks, while behind the wheel. People may feel this is best use time while getting to a destination. Occasionally, the small amount of time that people are trying to gain results in a time consuming accident. With modern conveniences that are geared toward an on the go public, individuals appear to be too preoccupied to driving safely.
Although the objectives of the two experiments I discussed were different, result were the same regardless as to what the differences might have been. In all experiment including the one I did, results were concurrent. Findings supported the hypothesis that was set forth: As angular rotation increased, reaction time will also increase. Thus, showing reaction times do serve as an appropriate method for analyzing how quickly the brain reacts to mental rotations of images.
The data presented shows that participants have a faster reaction time when partaking in the congruent condition, compared to the incongruent and non colour conditions. These findings support Stroop’s widely known theory of the stroop interference. By Stroop’s experimental findings, he has described that interference occurs by the automation of reading, where the brain automatically read the semantic meaning of word (e.g reading the colour blue and thinking of the colour blue). It is not an automatic process, when the brain needs to intentionally check itself and correctly identify the colour of the word. This explains the faster reaction time in the congruent condition, compared to the other incongruent and non colour condition. Sheibe, Shaver and Carrier’s theory can also be applied to this context as it is illustrated in the results that interference does occur via automatic
We hypothesized that the more an image is rotated, the longer the reaction time will be because of the additional mental processes that must take place in order to correctly complete the object recognition. We further hypothesized that the angle will overall have a greater impact on the 2-dimensional pictures than the letters. Additionally, we hypothesized that the combination of both the object type and the angle together will affect reaction time more significantly overall.
Introduction: The Simon effect refers to the finding that people are faster and more accurate responding to stimuli that occur in the same relative location as the response, even though the location information is irrelevant to the actual task (Simon, 1969). In studying the Simon effect it is possible to understand response selection. There are three stages which must be taken into consideration: Stimulus identification, response selection and response execution. Thus, the focus of this experiment is to determine whether or not people are faster and perhaps more accurate responding to stimuli in the same relative location as the response, despite the fact that the location information is irrelevant.
Thinking distance - the time taken to react by a driver. During reaction time the car continues moving.
Figure 1 presents the average score in milliseconds and shows that findings support the given hypothesis. For the congruent condition, the average speed of response was the fastest (M = 716.80, SD = 71.52) when compared to other data sets. As hypothesised, colour incongruent words had the slowest reaction time (M = 784.56, SD = 108.50), however the variability of this variable was notably larger than the other two variables. The time for non-colour words was intermediate (M = 736.13, SD = 78.18), however was closer to the speed for congruent word types indicating a marginally faster reaction time.
As with the mental map experiments, the fact that reaction time depends directly on the degree of rotation has been taken as evidence that we solve the...
The relation of automaticity and the brain can be seen by performing tasks and examining brain activity before and after automaticity training. Before the training of automaticity, the sections of the brain used when performing serial reaction time (SRT) tasks are an activation of a wide network of frontal and striatal regions, as well as parietal lobe (Poldrack et al. 2005). After the training of a...
Many factors can influence the results of testing this hypothesis. All variables have been controlled except for the variable gender. Both the male and female subjects are close in age (< two years difference), both are nonsmokers, both possess small body builds for their respective gender, and both have no debilitating medical conditions (e.g., asthma, diabetes, heart condition). Controlling these factors allowed for the testing of the hypothesis, which is focused strictly on gender.
When you are driving you always have to be alert and have your eyes all over the road. Being that no one can foretell the future you never know what is around the corner. At any given time an accident can occur and if one does and your are in close range of it, it is up to you to stop in enough time to avoid the accident and to avoid one of your own. This act of avoiding an accident all depends on your response time. Your response time in the amount of time a person requires before they can act. Your response time has a direct impact on your driving. As you know it takes time to realize the situation and then more time added to that to actually respond to the whole situation. If you are not quick to act, then most likely you will be apart of the crash. That is why getting a better knowledge of your response time is very important because it can save your lives as well as others.
Nevertheless, hands-free phones are just as disturbing as hand held phones. They both serve the same purpose when it comes to distracting the driver from state of the road. Thus, hand held devices do not increase safety, and I have observed this when using the cell phones as I drive. At the same time, I have noticed that my reaction time significantly reduced, and I almost caused an accident. When I look at this slow reaction, I compare it to that of an old...