Lecture 2 - Information Processing

Question 1

What is reaction time?

Answer 1

• The time that it takes for you to start responding to a certain event
• Measure of time it takes to process information

Question 2

What is information processing?

Answer 2

• The interval between the start of an unanticipated stimulus & the initiation of the response
• refers to deciding what to do to achieve a goal

Question 3

What is movement time?

Answer 3

• The interval between the start of the movement & the end
• Response time = RT + MT

Question 4

What are the 8 factors influencing reaction time?

Answer 4

• age
• sex
• hand use
• arousal
• intelligence
• fatigue
• distraction
• caffeine

Question 5

How does age influence reaction time?

Answer 5

• Decreases (or faster) through childhood till the late 20s
• Will start to increase slowly until 50-60 years then rapidly after 70

Question 6

How does sex influence reaction time?

Answer 6

• Males are typically faster at reacting whereas females are more accurate
• New studies suggest male advantage is reduced because women take part in activities requiring quick responses

Question 7

How does arousal influence reaction time?

Answer 7

• Reaction time is faster with a normal degree of arousal

Question 8

How does intelligence influence reaction time?

Answer 8

• People with intellectual disability suffer with slower reaction time
• Higher intelligent people tend to have a faster reaction time

Question 9

How does fatigue influence reaction time?

Answer 9

• More fatigued individuals will have a slower reaction time

Question 10

How does distraction influence reaction time?

Answer 10

• Distraction will increase reaction time
• I.e., cell phones

Question 11

How does caffeine influence reaction time?

Answer 11

• Moderate doses of caffeine will decrease reaction time

Question 12

What are 3 factors that affect stimulus identification?

Answer 12

• stimulus clarity
• stimulus intensity
• stimulus modality

Question 13

What is stimulus clarity?

Answer 13

• Target in central vs. peripheral vision
• Visual RTs are quicker in central vision as opposed to peripheral vision

Question 14

What is stimulus intensity?

Answer 14

• the strength of the sensory input to the brain, after a certain point, there is a stabilization
• Froeberg (1907) found that a higher intensity visual stimulus produced faster RTs
• Wells (1913) found the same thing for an auditory stimulus
• Piéron (1920) & Luce (1986) found slower RTs for a weak stimulus

Question 15

What is stimulus modality ?

Answer 15

• Visual RT: 180-200 ms
• Tactile RT: 155 ms
• Auditory RT: 140-160 ms
• Auditory stimulus takes 8-10 ms to reach the brain while visual stimulus takes 20-40 ms

Question 16

What is donder’s subtractive method?

Answer 16

• assumed there was a series of separate information processing stages between a stimulus & a response
• Stages in serial order, need to be completed in order:
  • Stimulus detection
  • Stimulus identification
  • Response selection
  • Response execution

Question 17

What were the 3 types of reaction time tasks made by Donders?

Answer 17

• simple reaction time
• choice reaction time
• Go/No go reaction time
• All three tasks have different stages
  - Difference in RT between two tasks represents the time required to perform a specific step

Question 18

What is simple reaction time?

Answer 18

• One possible stimulus & one possible response
• Only have to detect the stimulus & execute the response

Question 19

What is choice reaction time?

Answer 19

• Faced with 2 or more stimuli & 2 or more possible responses
• must detect a stimulus occurred & identify it (since there is more than. One option), then select the appropriate response & execute it

Question 20

What is Go/No go reaction time?

Answer 20

• Have 2 stimuli but only respond to 1
• Detect the stimulus, identify which one was presented then execute the response

Question 21

What are the 5 stages of information processing?

Answer 21

• input
• stimulus identification stage
• response selection stage
• movement programming stage
• output

Question 22

What is the input stage of information processing?

Answer 22

• Information to be processed by the human
• The human information-processing system requires more time to process larger amounts of information than it does smaller amounts

Question 23

What is the stimulus identification stage of information processing?

Answer 23

• decide whether a stimulus has been presented &, if so, what it is
• System analyzes environmental information from a variety of sources
• Components of stimuli are assembled & Patterns of movement are detected

Question 24

What is the response selection stage of information processing?

Answer 24

• deciding what response to make, given the nature of the situation & environment
• Process of determining what to do & how it should be done

Question 25

What is the movement programming stage of information processing?

Answer 25

• preparing the motor system to make the desired movement
• Ready the mechanisms in brain stem and spinal cord for action
• Retrieve and organize a motor program

Question 26

What is the output stage of information processing?

Answer 26

• Stages involved in producing motor output
• Focus of motor control research

Question 27

What is Hick’s law?

Answer 27

• Time required to make a decision about a response is linearly related to the amount of information that must be processed
• RT increases proportionally every time the number of S-R alternatives is doubled

Question 28

What are the expectations of Hick’s law?

Answer 28

• Relationship between S & R has an effect on response selection: when skills are highly over learned or biologically “natural”, response selection between several alternatives can be facilitated
• Practice in choice RT
• Tactile stimuli
• Eye movement response