Effect of uncertainty on the time course for selection of verbal name codes

Abstract

Response selection takes time. Hick's law (Hick, 1952) predicts that the time course of response selection is a logarithmic function of the number of equally likely response alternatives. However, recent work has shown that oculomotor responses constitute noteworthy exceptions in that the latencies of saccades (Kveraga, Boucher, & Hughes, 2002) and smooth pursuit movements (Berryhill, Kveraga, Boucher, & Hughes, 2004) are completely independent of response uncertainty. This finding extends to the case in which the required response was known in advance (i.e., simple reaction times [RTs] were equivalent to choice RTs). In view of these results, we reevaluated reports that latencies to name visually presented digits (Experiment 1) and/or repeat aurally presented digits (Experiment 2) are similarly independent of the size of the response set. We found that naming latencies were equivalent for response set sizes from one to eight, but simple RTs (response set of one) were faster. Thus, the overlearned task of digit naming is indeed highly automatic but has not reached the level of automaticity characteristic of the oculomotor system.