Disjunctive Reaction Time Measure as it relates to Complexity of Task

This study was conducted to prove that reaction time increases as the level of complexity increases. Disjunctive reaction time was measured to eliminate subject reacting too early to the stimulus. Also make the tack more complicated and for subject to uses discrimination before responding to stimulus. Postman and Egan (1949) defines disjunctive reaction time as "two or more different stimuli are presented in random order...the subject is instructed to react to one but not

When the arrowheads disappear from the screen, the circle remaining, the subject must wait for a variable fore period of one to three seconds. A single arrowhead is displayed at this point the subject should react as quickly as possible to the stimulus in the appropriate direction. The response ends the trail. At this time the results are displayed on the screen. The experimenter who is not depressing the ENTER key on the keyboard should record the result on a data sheet. The data sheet should include trail number, trail type, required response, subject response, and latency rounded to the nearest millisecond, and a column for failed responses. Failed responses included those responses in the foreperiod and those responses to the wrong direction. After all 144 trail are complete, thank the subject for their time and offer answer any question the may have.

Although t test did not provide any significant results, the inference can be made that practice effects may have occurred because the means of the first 36 trails were shorter than those of the last 36 trials. Also the inference of fatigue or boredom may be a reasons that the t test were not significant. Postaman and Eagan (1949) propose that the subjects has an "concentrated attention on the stimulus,"(p. 255) if the subject becomes bored or fatigue with repeatedly doing the same task practice effect result may not occur. Another reason that practice effects result did not occur may have been the sample size and number of trials. With Rikli and Busch (1989) the sample size was 60 adult females, compared to 10 randomly chosen adults for this study. The number of trails for the Rikli and Busch (1989) study was 10, where that last 8 trails were used to determine the mean scores for the analysis, this procedure has a reliability of .87. This study also used the last trials to determine variance however, fatigue or boredom may have set in by the last 36 trails of 144 trails.

Before each subject participated in the study in formed consent was given. Prior to subject being seated, the experimenter test equipment to make sure it is functioning properly. The subject is seated in front of the monitor, where instruction for the experiment appears on the screen. The experimenter is seated next to the subject where they are able to access the keyboard to press enter after every trail. The experiment starts with 12 practice trails, with 144 total test trails. When the 12 practice trails are finished the experimenter informs the subject that the test trails are about to begin, and if the subject has any questions ask them now, because during the test trails the experimenter is not allowed to answer any questions.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 18533
Approximate Pages = 74 (250 words per page double spaced)