Effect of Motivating Instructions on Simple Reaction Time

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Twenty-four male patients with no history of cerebral damage or psychosis and 24 non-hospitalized male Ss received 65 simple reaction time (RT) trials under constant 6-sec. foreperiod conditions. No preparatory signal was used. Time between onset of a visual stimulus and its termination by Ss depression of a telegraph key was the RT. Initially, all Ss received 35 trials followed by either success, failure, or standard instructions. Thirty additional trials were given. RTs of the hospitalized Ss were longer than those of the non-hospitalized Ss, but differences fell short of statistical significance. Differences between instruction subgroups were not significant, suggesting that motivating instructions do not affect simple RT performances.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: