Citation

Wells FL, Kelley CM, Murphy G. J. Exp. Psychol. 1921; 4(5): 391-398.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1921, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/h0071828

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Experiments of Breitwieser and Woodrow have shown that when O does not know what the duration of an interval between a warning signal and a stimulus for reaction will be, there seems to be a narrow zone within which "attention" is relatively higher than for other prestimulus intervals. That is to say, the shortest reaction times occur in the interval from two to four seconds, with a leaning towards two. These findings are supported by the present experiments in which the prestimulus intervals, unknown to O, were kept approximately at one second or three seconds. A comparison ratio of the reaction times under these two intervals reveals a general tendency to favor the three-second interval: the one-second interval, arguing from the work of the previous investigators, is ahead of the most favored interval, while the three-second interval is right in the most favored zone. From Psych Bulletin 19:03:00198. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)