Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Shahidbeheshti university

2 Shahid beheshti university

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of different types of second stimulus (simple, discrimination, choice) at different time intervals on the first stimulus reaction time in the psychological refractory period paradigm. Thirty-six female students, aged 18–24 (mean=21) years, were randomly assigned to three experimental groups of 12 each: simple, discrimination and choice. For each group, there were five measurement phases based on the time interval between two stimuli (50, 100, 200, 400, and 1000 ms).  Data was analyzed with repeated measures and mixed factorial analysis of variance including factors of time intervals and groups. Results showed that in the first stimulus reaction time, the main effect of group (F2,33 =15.40, P=0.001), the main effect of different time interval (F3,93=16.79, P=0.001), and the interaction between group and time interval (F5,93=2.42, P=0.03) was significant. In the second stimuli reaction time, the main effect of group (F2,33=12.04, P=0.001) was significant; the main effect of different time interval (F3, 100 = 2.57, P=0.05) and the interaction between group and time interval (F3,100=1.63, P=0.05) was not significant. Findings showed that the second stimulus type and the interval between two stimuli significantly affect the second stimulus reaction time delay as well as the first stimulus reaction time.

Keywords

Main Subjects

1. Schmidt R A, Lee T. Motor control and learning. Champaign. Human kinetics; 1988.123-57.
2. Pashler H E, Sutherland S. The psychology of attention. MIT Press Cambridge, MA; 1998.75-121.
3. Telford C W. The refractory phase of voluntary and associative responses. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1931; 14(1): 1.
4. Pashler H. Dual-task interference in simple tasks: Data and theory. Psychological Bulletin. 1994; 116(2): 220.
5. Schmidt RA, Wrisberg CA. Motor learning and performance: A situation-based learning approach. Human Kinetics; 2004.
6. Meyer D E, Kieras D E. A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: Part I. Basic mechanisms. Psychological Review. 1997; 104(1): 3.
7. Navon D, Miller J. Queuing or sharing? A critical evaluation of the single-bottleneck notion. Cognitive Psychology. 2002; 44­(3): 193-251.
8. Tombu M, Jolicœur P. A central capacity sharing model of dual-task performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 2003; 29(1): 3.
9. Miller J. Backward crosstalk effects in psychological refractory period paradigms: Effects of second-task response types on first-task response latencies. Psychological Research. 2006; 70(6): 484-93.
10. Pashler H. Processing stages in overlapping tasks: Evidence for a central bottleneck. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 1984; 10(3): 358.
11. Smith M C. Theories of the psychological refractory period. Psychological Bulletin. 1967; 67(3): 202.
12. Ulrich R, Miller J. Response grouping in the psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm: Models and contamination effects. Cognitive Psychology. 2008; 57(2): 75-121.
13. Kahneman D. Attention and effort. Citeseer; 1973.
14. Band G P H, van Nes F T. Reconfiguration and the bottleneck: Does task switching affect the refractory period effect? European Journal of Cognitive Psychology. 2006; 18(4): 593-623.
15. Miller J, Alderton M. Backward response-level crosstalk in the psychological refractory period paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 2006; 32(1): 149-65.
16. Hommel B. Automatic stimulus–response translation in dual-task performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 1998; 24(5): 1368-84.
17. Hommel B, Eglau B. Control of stimulus-response translation in dual-task performance. Psychological Research. 2002; 66(4): 260-73.
18. Logan G D, Delheimer J A. Parallel memory retrieval in dual-task situations: II. Episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 2001; 27(3): 668-85.
19. Lien M C, Proctor R W. Stimulus-response compatibility and psychological refractory period effects: Implications for response selection. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2002; 9(2): 212-38.
20. Hazeltine E, Ruthruff E, Remington R W. The role of input and output modality pairings in dual-task performance: Evidence for content-dependent central interference. Cognitive Psychology. 2006; 52(4): 291-345.