The Effect of Gender on Response Time

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I. Introduction Since the last decade of nineteenth century, there have been many experiments and approaches that were conducted to analyze which group men or women had a faster response reaction. Those experiments were about human response time which is the time needed to perceive, evaluate and respond to a particular question, or to identify the object, color. Sometimes, the response time also shows how smart people are, or how much information and knowledge they have. Franciscus Donders was the first scientist to analyze human response time. He tried to convince everybody that men and women had different response times (Donders, 1969). Zajdel (2007) also performed the same experiment and concluded that men reacted faster than women did. The focus of response time research is the reaction time. Jaworki (2011) states that the response time is the sum reaction time plus movement time. There are two different kinds of reaction times which include simple reactions, and complex reactions. These complex reactions consist of recognition reaction, choice reaction, and discrimination reaction (Jaworki, 2011). The simplest is simple reaction time in which the motion is required for an observer to respond to the presence of a stimulus. An example of the simple reaction is vwhen a person is required to name the color in front of them. The recognition reaction time is more complex compare to the simple reaction time because it requires the subject press a button when one stimulus type appears and withholds a response when another stimulus type appears (Zajdel, 2007). For example, the subject may have to press the button when a green light appears and not respond when a blue light appears. In the choice reaction time, each po... ... middle of paper ... ...ment. The P value was 0.0099 that proved that men took less time to respond than women. This P value accepted my hypothesis. My result had this P value (0.0099) because men answered much faster than women. In other word, the gender affected response time. Works Cited Deary, I. J.2006. Age and sex difference in reaction time in adulthood: Result from the United Kingdom health and life style. Psychology and Aging 21(1): 62-73. Donders, F.C. 1868. On the speed of mental processes. Translated by W. G. Kroster, 1969, Acta psychology 30:412-431. Jaworski, J. 2011. Involution of simple and complex reaction time. Human movement 2011 Pedro, A. 2009. Reaction time normative for the IAPS as a function of display gender, time. Behavior Research Method 41.1: 184-91. Zajdel, R. 2007. Simple and complex reaction time. Computer in biology and medicine. 37.12

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