How to write a reflection paper on an interview

A Literature Review on Reaction Timeby Robert J. Kosinski Clemson UniversityReaction time has a been a favorite subject of experimental psychologists since the middle of the nineteenthcentury. However, most studies ask questions about the organization of the brain, so the authors spend a lot oftime trying to determine if the results conform to some mathematical model of brain activity. This makes thesepapers hard to understand for the beginning student. In this review, I have ignored these brain organizationquestions and summarized the major literature conclusions that are applicable to undergraduate laboratoriesusing my Reaction Time software. I hope this review helps you write a good report on your reaction timeexperiment. I also apologize to reaction time researchers for omissions and oversimplifications. Kinds of Reaction Time ExperimentsPsychologists have named three basic kinds of reaction time experiments (Luce, 1986; Welford, 1980): In simple reaction time experiments, there is only one stimulus and one response. 'X at a known location,' 'spotthe dot,' and 'reaction to sound' all measure simple reaction time. In recognition reaction time experiments, there are some stimuli that should be responded to (the 'memory set'),and others that should get no response (the 'distractor set'). There is still only one correct response. 'Symbolrecognition' and 'tone recognition' are both recognition experiments. In choice reaction time experiments, the user must give a response that corresponds to the stimulus, such aspressing a key corresponding to a letter if the letter appears on the screen. The Reaction Time program does notuse this type of experiment because the response is always pressing the spacebar. By the way, professional psychologists doing these experiments typically employ about 20 people doing 100-200reaction times each...per treatment (Luce, 1986, Ch. 6)! Sanders (1998, p. 23) recommends an adequate period ofpractice, and then collection of 300 reaction times per person. Our experiments of 3 or 4 people doing 10 reactiontimes each are very small. Whelan (2008) has an extensive series of recommendations on how to analzye reactiontime data. Mean Reaction TimesFor about 120 years, the accepted figures for mean simple reaction times for college-age individuals have beenabout 190 ms (0.19 sec) for light stimuli and about 160 ms for sound stimuli (Galton, 1899; Fieandt et al., 1956;Welford, 1980; Brebner and Welford, 1980). Simple vs. Recognition vs. Choice Reaction TimesThe pioneer reaction time study was that of Donders (1868). He showed that a simple reaction time is shorter thana recognition reaction time, and that the choice reaction time is longest of all. Laming (1968) concluded thatsimple reaction times averaged 220 msec but recognition reaction times averaged 384 msec. This is in line withmany studies concluding that a complex stimulus (e.g., several letters in symbol recognition vs. one letter) elicits aslower reaction time (Brebner and Welford, 1980; Teichner and Krebs, 1974; Luce, 1986). An example very muchlike our experiment was reported by Surwillo (1973), in which reaction was faster when a single tone soundedthan when either a high or a low tone sounded and the subject was supposed to react only when the high tonesounded. Miller and Low (2001) determined that the time for motor preparation (e.g., tensing muscles) and motor response(in this case, pressing the spacebar) was the same in all three types of reaction time test, implying that thedifferences in reaction time are due to processing time.
Numer of possible valid stimuli. Several investigators have looked at the effect of increasing the number ofpossible stimuli in recognition and choice experiments. Hick (1952) found that in choice reaction timeexperiments, response was proportional to log(N), where N is the number of different possible stimuli. In otherwords, reaction time rises with N, but once N gets large, reaction time no longer increases so much as when Nwas small. This relationship is called "Hick's Law." Sternberg (1969) maintained that in recognition experiments,as the number of items in the memory set increases, the reaction time rises proportionately (that is, proportionalto N, not to log N). Reaction times ranged from 420 msec for 1 valid stimulus (such as one letter in symbolrecognition) to 630 msec for 6 valid stimuli, increasing by about 40 msec every time another item was added tothe memory set. Nickerson (1972) reviewed several recognition studies and agreed with these results. Type of StimulusMany researchers have confirmed that reaction to sound is faster than reaction to light, with mean auditoryreaction times being 140-160 msec and visual reaction times being 180-200 msec (Galton, 1899; Woodworth andSchlosberg, 1954; Fieandt et al., 1956; Welford, 1980; Brebner and Welford, 1980). Perhaps this is because anauditory stimulus only takes 8-10 msec to reach the brain (Kemp et al., 1973), but a visual stimulus takes 20-40msec (Marshall et al., 1943). Reaction time to touch is intermediate, at 155 msec (Robinson, 1934). Differences inreaction time between these types of stimuli persist whether the subject is asked to make a simple response or acomplex response (Sanders, 1998, p. 114).Stimulus IntensityFroeberg (1907) found that visual stimuli that are longer in duration elicit faster reaction times, and Wells (1913)got the same result for auditory stimuli. Pi=E9ron (1920) and Luce (1986) reported that the weaker the stimulus (such as a very faint light) is, the longerthe reaction time is. However, after the stimulus gets to a certain strength, reaction time becomes constant. Inother words, the relationship is: Hsieh et al. (2007) found that simulated vibration of a computer monitor increased reaction times to stimulipresented on the monitor, worsened error rates, and caused more visual fatigue. In an application to Web sitedesign, Tuch et al. (2009) found that visually complex Web sites increased user arousal (and stress), but slowedreaction times. Kohfeld (1971) found that the difference between reaction time to light and sound could beeliminated if a sufficiently high stimulus intensity was used.Other Factors Influencing Reaction TimeIf variation caused by the type of reaction time experiment, type of stimulus, and stimulus intensity are ignored,there are still many factors affecting reaction time.