ABSTRACT
This chapter is an introduction to mental chronometry, the method of measuring the duration of responses as an indicator of information processing. We provide a short overview of the history of chronometric methods and demonstrate how measurements of reaction times or movement times can be utilised to study human cognition. General principles and paradigms to examine theoretical assumptions about different processing stages and the interdependence of cognitive processes are discussed. Afterwards, we illustrate how mental chronometry informs about the nature of cognitive representations by describing exemplary studies from the field of embodied cognition. The assumptions as well as the limits of the approach of mental chronometry will be explicitly listed and critically evaluated.
