Reaction time and movement time as measures of stimulus evaluation and response processes

Abstract

Reaction time has been divided into the time to initiate a response (RT) and the time to execute the motor response (MT) in many chronometric studies of intelligence. Our purpose was to determine which cognitive processes are reflected by RT and MT. To accomplish this, the latency of the P300 wave of the event-related potential was recorded concurrently with RT and MT measures in three experiments. P300 latency reflects the duration of stimulus evaluation relatively independently of response processes. In the first experiment, a Sternberg memory task was employed to manipulate stimulus classification requirements. In the second, the subjects' emphasis on either speed or accuracy of responding was examined during a task that also manipulated stimulus evaluation time. In the third experiment, a Stroop-like task was used to examine response processes. RT and P300 latency varied with manipulations of stimulus evaluation time, whereas MT varied with difficulty of motor execution. MT was also affected by stimulus classification processes. Both RT and MT were sensitive to processes involved in response bias and preparation. The possibility that the correlations of RT and MT with measures of intelligence are due to effects on a common stage of information processing cannot be rejected in the light of these results.