THE EFFECTS OF ‘ MACHINE ’ LAG ON A SERIAL CHOICE TASK WITH BALANCED AND BIASED INPUT FREQUENCIES

Abstract

An experiment is described which was designed to study the effects on rate or responding of (a) the frequencies of the various signals to which responses had to be made, and (b) the introduction of enforced delays between the appearance of a signal and the making of a response to it. Time taken to respond was found to be significantly lower when one of five alternative signals occurred much more frequently than others, than when the frequencies of all five signals were the same Enforced delays in responding clearly shifted the modal response time when the input frequencies were biased. The experiment has affinities to a number of practical tasks and was suggested by a problem arising in the sorting of letters by machine. Certain theoretical implications are also discussed regarding maximum possible rates of responding and the relation of response time to ‘ information ’.