Reaction Time and the Expectancy Hypothesis

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Abstract
The measurement and meaning of the term expectancy and equivalent concepts as used in areas such as learning and vigilance are discussed briefly, and some experiments designed to measure the temporal course of expectancy are reviewed. A visual reaction time experiment is reported in which the effects of 1, 2, 3, or 4 recurrences of 2-, 3-, 4-, or 5-sec. “training” intervals on reaction time to a single “test” stimulus appearing 2, 3, 4, or 5 sec. after the last training stimulus were investigated. The results showed an insignificant effect of number of training intervals, but both the training and test interval effects and the interaction between the two were statistically significant. The general features of the curves plotted from the 16 training × test interval reaction time means illustrate that, under the conditions employed in the present experiment, mean reaction time is minimum when the training and test intervals are equal and increases as the absolute difference in duration of training and test intervals increases. Since expectancy in this investigation was operationally defined as the reciprocal of reaction time, the results obtained here are consistent with those of several previous investigations of the temporal course of expectancy.

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