Reaction Time as a Psychophysical Method in Psychiatric Research*

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As shown in Nuechterlein' s systematic and thorough review of the literature, a great deal of research on the use of reaction time (RT) to study attention in schizophrenia has been undertaken. In these studies, the properties or attributes of stimuli (modality, intensity, auditory frequency, and duration) are manipulated not to determine their direct effect on the response, but to infer indirectly differences in attention between patients and normals; e.g., regularity of foreperiod duration in the Shakow paradigm or sequence of sensory modality in the Sutton paradigm. What we propose in this short paper is to turn the paradigm upside down and to discuss the potential fruitfulness of using RT to examine differences between groups in their sensory capacity. In this approach, the attentional variable shifts from the focus of the experiment to the status of one of the major sources of artifact. And, paradoxically, we attempt to show that the RT technique, which is so uniquely suited to the measurement of attentional differences, is also particularly well suited to the reduction of the influence of attention and other similar variables as sources of experimental artifact. Although the advantages of using the RT technique for studying the sensory performance of psychiatric patients are the major topic of this report, it should be noted that many of the proposed advantages may apply equally as well for the use of other response measures in psychiatric research.