Sequential effects of serial reaction time.

Abstract

The serial reaction time data from an experiment producing a negative recency effect at different interstimulus intervals were subjected to an analysis which included an investigation of up to and including fifth-order sequential effects. Third-, fourth-, and fifth-order effects were found to occur, indicating that the negative recency could not be explained by considering sequences of two events only. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to models seeking to explain sequential effects in serial reaction time tasks.Sequential effects have been found in serial reaction time experiments such that under some conditions, responses to a signal which is the same as the preceding signal are faster than if it is different (e.g., Bertelson, 1961). Under other conditions the opposite has been found, the response to a signal which is different from the preceding signal being faster than if it is the same (e.g., Williams, 1966). The former has been called a positive recency or "repetition" effect (Bertelson, 1961), and the latter a negative recency or "alternation" effect.Some experiments have reported that the repetition effect tends to decrease, and even to change to an alternation effect, with increasing interstimulus interval (e.g., Bertelson, 1961;Hale, 1967), but others have failed to find such a change (e.g., Keele, 1969;Schvaneveldt & Chase, 1969). Generally, however, with two-choice compatible S-R arrangements, repetition effects have been found with interstimulus intervals of less than 1 sec. (e.g., Bertelson, 1961;Hale, 1967), while alternation effects have been found with interstimulus intervals of greater than 1 sec. (e.g., Hale, 1967 ;Williams, 1966).Attempts to explain the repetition effect by Bertelson (1963) and the alternation effect by Williams (1966) have both assumed that they primarily are due to the 1 The author wishes to thank A. T. Welford for his valuable advice, encouragement, and criticism, and R. Willson for writing the computer programs used in this experiment.2 Requests for reprints should be sent to N.

Priming of pop-out: I. Role of features

“…Second are the "alternation effects"-faster responding occurs with changing stimuli. These occur with intertrial intervals longer than 500 msec (e.g., Kirby, 1972;Moss, Engel, & Faberman, 1967). Although our finding may appear to contradict the results of these studies (we found a repetition effect with an intertrial interval that was significantly longer than 500 msec), we would like to point out that we have dissociated color, position, and shape/response, whereas these variables were confounded in the previously mentioned studies .…”

“…Priming may also account for the data obtained in two-choice reaction time paradigms (e.g., Geller, Whitman, Wrenn, & Shipley, 1971;Kirby, 1972;Remington, 1969;Schvaneveldt & Chase, 1969; see also Kowler, Martins, & Pavel, 1984), which show an orderly treelike arrangement. In these paradigms, each repetition of the stimulus produces a faster response, and alternation produces a slower response (indeed, our data produced the same kind of an orderly "tree" for the attentionfocusing feature when we analyzed all possible fifthorder sequences).…”

P300 and Stimulus Categorization: Two Plus One is not so Different from One Plus One

“…While in most affect the RT, and thus iK^count for the effects of of the previous research, the effect of only the stimulus sequence on RT. Laming's model emimmediately preceding stimulus (second-order ef-phasizes the subject's appraisal of the relative firefects) was analyzed, a few investigators have re-quency of the stimuli themselves as well as the ported the same trends for higher-order sequences, relative frequency of stimulus alternations and repthrough fifth-order (Kirby, 1972(Kirby, ,1976Remington, etitions. The model presented by K. Squires et al 1969Squires et al , 1971.…”

Sequential priming is not constrained by the shape of long-term learning curves

“…Thus, a cost-benefit type of negative correlation should occur between stimulus/response repetition RTs and stimulus/response alternation RTs for the current trial, depending on the preceding patterns of repetition-alternation (e.g., Audley, 1973;Kirby, 1972;Soetens, 1998;Soetens et al, 1985;. Mathematically, the strength of expectancy effects (the negative slope of the regression line) can vary orthogonally to the strength of first-order priming effects (the center of gravity of the correlation pattern being shifted toward faster repetition RT and slower alternation RT).…”