ABSTRACT
A number of writers (Pachella, 1974; Wickelgren, 1977; Oilman, 1977) have recently expressed concern with the growing dependency of cognitive psychology on experimental paradigms that utilize reaction time as their basic dependent variable. This concern has focused on the manner in which the majority of investigators who have used these paradigms have interpreted the obtained reaction times in the theoretical accounts of the phenomena that they have studied. Typically, reaction times have been interpreted in a manner that is simple, straightforward, and intuitively appealing. However, recent empirical findings about the nature of reaction time measures (Pachella, 1974; Oilman, 1977) have indicated that there may be some serious and fundamental problems associated with this naive interpretation; and with such an extensive effort of cognitive psychologists centering around the use of this single variable, it has become crucial that the variable come under close scrutiny. Problems and limitations that are basic to the use of reaction time paradigms in general are likely to have far-reaching effects on our understanding of many substantive issues. Thus the research presented in this Chapter is a product of such a scrutiny, and it is the hope of the investigators that it leads to both a fuller understanding of the limitations of reaction time methodology and points in the direction of some useful alternatives.
