Reaction time,movement time,and intelligence: A replication and extension

The purpose of the investigation was to replicate and extend a study by Jensen and Munro which found reaction time (RT) and movement time (MT) parameters to correlate negatively and moderately with Raven matrices performance. A sample of 20 ninth-grade girls was used. Relationships between RT and MT and Raven scores were found to be negative and moderate to high, thus replicating the Jensen and Munro study. In addition, moderate to strong negative correlations were found between RT and MT parameters and reading comprehension and performance on the California Test of Basic Skills. Weaker relationships were found for mathematics and English grades although the direction was consistently negative.     

Reaction time, intelligence, and attention

The roles of attention in reaction time and in the relationships among reaction time, intelligence, and achievement were analyzed. The subjects were 105 seventh-grade children. The results were generally consistent with most studies involving the Hick paradigm: both mean reaction time and the standard deviation of reaction time correlated with the intelligence and achievement measures used. Reaction time measures were correlated with attention and perceptual speed as well as with general intelligence, or g. Implications of these results for current theories linking reaction time and intelligence are discussed.     

Reaction time and intelligence in the mentally retarted

Mildly retarted young adults were given simple and choice reaction time (RT) tests. Scores were also obtained on the Raven Progressive Matrices and the Figure Copying Test. Subjects' RTs increased as a function of stimulus complexity, and they were consistently subjects' intraindividual variability of response time was also markedly greater than that of non-retarded subjects. A number of RT parameters were found to be related to the measures of intelligence. Subjects seen on ten successive days showed low day-to-day stability of RT but no practice or fatigue effect.     

Reaction time and intelligence: A replicated study

Two samples of adult subjects of reasonably average intelligence were given IQ tests and a series of RT tests using 0, 1, 2, and 3 bits of information in a Hick paradigm. Both series showed negative correlation between IQ on the one hand, and RT and σRT, on the other, confirming earlier work. On the other hand, there was no evidence of correlation between the Hick slope and IQ, and the correlation between IQ and RT of σRT did not increase from 1 to 3 bits of information. It was found that the Hick paradigm did not apply to some 20% of the samples, and that the exclusion of these nonconformists increased the correlation between IQ and RT/σRT.     

Reaction time and movement time after active and passive smoking

Reaction time and movement time were studied following active and passive smoking in two groups of 20 women. All subjects were tested under a clean air and smoky air condition and the results showed that, while there was no difference between groups for either measure in the clear air condition, the active smokers had faster reaction time and movement time in the smoky air condition. Smoky air had no significant effect on the responses of the passive smoking group.     

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

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.     

Reaction time and movement time measured in a key-press and a key-release condition.

Reaction time (RT) and movement time (MT) are measured in two conditions, a key-press and a key-release condition. The latter makes a greater demand on perceptual feedback than the former. RT increases in the key-release condition and a fraction of MT denoted key-press time (KT) decreases in the key-press condition. It is argued that KT of a response button in the simple reaction-time experiment may serve as a proper measure of the motor component. The foreperiod prior to onset of the reacting stimulus affects RT, KT, and MT, suggesting that preparatory set or expectancy influences both the perceptual and motor components of simple human performance. The results indicate that the relation of RT and MT depends upon methodological conditions.     

Reaction time and intelligence: Comparing associations based on two response modes

People who score highly on intelligence tests also tend to have faster and less variable reaction times. Effect size estimates for the reaction time–intelligence association are larger in samples that are more representative of the population. However, such samples have often been tested on a reaction time device that requires reading a number and processing its association with a specific response location (Cox, Huppert, & Whichelow, 1993). Here, we use this device and another reaction time device (Dykiert et al., 2010) that is similar, except that the responses require less processing; subjects simply press a button that is adjacent to the stimulus light. We focus on the possibility that lights as stimuli require less higher-order cognitive engagement than numbers, and then test whether parameters from these two tasks are highly correlated and similarly associated with age and higher cognitive abilities. Both tasks measured simple and choice reaction times and their intra-individual variation across trials. The parameters of the two tasks were very highly correlated and parameters from both tasks were similarly associated with age, social factors, and differences in higher cognitive abilities. The respective choice reaction time parameters from either task accounted for much of the age- and higher cognitive ability-associations of the other task's parameters. These findings are important in establishing that the effect sizes of higher cognitive ability associations with processing speed measures may be found when the processing demands are minimal.     

Reaction times and intelligence

A total of 205-nine-year-olds were tested on reaction times providing 12 reaction time (RT) parameters consisting of: movement times, decision times in simple, choice, and odd-man-out tasks, variabilities, and also on a number of intelligence tests measuring the major primary abilities. Virtually all the reaction time parameters were significantly correlated with psychometric intelligence at a magnitude of around 0.2 Factor analysis showed the existence of a general factor on which reaction time and psychometric tests were correlated. In addition, there were four primary factors of psychometric intelligence, movement time, reaction time, and the odd-man-out task. Broad similarities, and some differences, were found between the present results and those of a similar study by Buckhalt and Jensen (1989).     

Inspection time and measured intelligence.

Ten subjects with WAIS Full Scale IQ scores ranging from 119 to 47 were required to discriminate between two lines of markedly different length, exposed in random order for ten different durations, by pressing one of two keys. Estimates of inspection time gamma, the rate at which sensory input is accumulated and passed to subsequent decision processes, were calculated directly from the psychometric functions obtained gamma was found to correlate negatively with subtests contributing to Performance IQ. There was a substantial degree of consistency between estimates of gamma on two different occasions and training did not appear to affect the index, although differences between the two estimates increased as the value of the first estimate increased. Mean overall response latency did not correlate significantly with intelligence and measures obtained from retarded subjects were very like those reported in similar experimental situations utilizing normal subjects. This unexpected finding is interpreted as suggesting that, in this situation, retarded subjects have been prepared to respond on the basis of less evidence than is usually required by intellectually normal subjects.     

Reaction times and intelligence in Korean children.

Nine-year-old Korean children (N = 299) were tested for reaction time (RT) and intelligence measured by Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Reaction times were broken into decision times and movement times and into three degrees of complexity. The results showed low but generally statistically significant correlations between decision times and intelligence. Generally, no significant differences existed between movement times and intelligence. Boys showed significantly faster movement times than girls did.     

Inspection time and its relation to intelligence

Inspection time, defined as the minimum duration for which two different stimuli must be presented if they are to be perceived as different, was measured for both auditory and visual stimuli. The minimum durations were determined by means of a two- alternative forced-choice task for 50 children whose average age was 12 years 2 months. The times were correlated with the children's verbal (Mill-Hill vocabulary) and nonverbal (Raven matrices) intelligence. The Kendall correlation coefficients were ?.3188 and ?.0929 for the auditory and visual inspection times with verbal intelligence, and ?.2322 and ?.2676 for those times with nonverbal intelligence. Auditory and visual inspection times were correlated .1721 with each other. These results do not support earlier claims that inspection time is closely related to conventional measures of intelligence.