Online psychophysics: reaction time effects in cognitive experiments

Using the Internet to acquire behavioral data is currently on the rise. However, very basic questions regarding the feasibility of online psychophysics are still open. Here, we aimed to replicate five well-known paradigms in experimental psychology (Stroop, Flanker, visual search, masked priming, attentional blink) in three settings (classical “lab”, “web-in-lab”, “web”) to account for possible changes in technology and environment. Lab and web-in-lab data were both acquired in an in-lab setting with lab using “Gold Standard” methods, while web-in-lab used web technology. This allowed for a direct comparison of potential differences in acquisition software. To account for additional environmental differences, the web technology experiments were published online to participate from home (setting web), thereby keeping the software and experimental design identical and only changing the environmental setting. Our main results are: First, we found an expected fixed additive timing offset when using web technology (M = 37 ms, SD = 8.14) and recording online (M = 87 ms, SD = 16.04) in comparison to lab data. Second, all task-specific effects were reproduced except for the priming paradigm, which couldn’t be replicated in any setting. Third, there were no differences in error rates, which are independent of the timing offset. This finding further supports the assumption of data equality over all settings. Fourth, we found that browser type might be influencing absolute reaction times. Together, these results contribute to the slowly but steadily growing literature that online psychophysics is a suitable complement – or even substitute – to lab data acquisition.