High-Speed Sequential Vocal Response Production

Abstract

Studies of the effect of production rate on response bias in randomization tasks have led to contradictory results. While Teraoka (1963) reported an effect of production rate on repetition avoidance, Wagenaar (1970) did not find such an effect. This study was designed to show that the difference between the findings of Teraoka and Wagenaar reflected a difference in the range of production rates used in both studies and to study response bias in high-speed conditions. Three measures of response bias, the zero-order frequency effect, stereotyped orders, and repetitions, increase when production rate is greater than two responses per second. Even with a production rate of four or five responses per second, however, performance is not completely stereotyped or perseverative. This can be explained by assuming high-speed comparison processes which operate in a parallel fashion and simultaneously with response-execution processes.