Simple and Choice Reaction Time Methods in the Study of Motor Programming

Abstract

In an extensive series of experiments Sternberg, Monsell, Knoll, and Wright (1978) reported that simple RT increased as a linear function of the number of items to be pronounced or typed. The present experiments replicate a portion of these results, but show that the effect is less general than may have been supposed. Since the effect does not occur in every case in which a response programming interpretation would predict it, this interpretation must be rejected. This conclusion is consistent with the viewpoint that response programming should be investigated in a choice-rather than simple-RT paradigm. In this view, motivated subjects can program responses in advance of the simple-RT interval because the particular response to be made has been precued. Effects of response parameters which are observed for motivated subjects in the simple-RT paradigm, such as those reported by Sternberg et al. (1978), should be attributed to processes other than programming motor responses.