Described is an in-class demonstration of mass reaction time which measures the speed of nerve impulses and the duration of various cognitive processes. A simpler version of the experiment for at-home use is described. (Author/DB)

Over a period of eight years, a group of habitual exercisers maintained desirable body weight while nonexercisers and occasional exercisers showed girth expansion, decreased flexibility, and slower body reaction time. (PBS)

Examined effects of a click signaling arrival of a visual stimulus to be timed on temporal discrimination in 3-, 5-, and 8-year-olds. Found that in all groups, the proportion of long responses increased with the stimulus duration, although the steepness of functions increased with age. Stimulus duration was judged longer with than without the…

Investigated the relation between infant expectations and reaction time (RT) at age 3 months, and Childhood IQ and RT at 4 years. Found that visual RT and manual RT in childhood correlated only marginally. Data suggested stability in RT between early infancy and childhood, or predictability of childhood IQ by infant RT and anticipation during…

Thirty-six elementary school students repeated short meaningful, long meaningful, and long nonce utterances in response to a visual cue. Nonstuttering, stuttering only, and stuttering-plus (concomitant speech and/or language problems) children responded differently to utterance length and meaningfulness. Results suggest that the three groups may…

Two experiments with French university students investigated whether the visual recognition of short prefixed and suffixed words was affected by their morphological structure. Results indicated that encoding times were sensitive to the lexical status of the unit, with a significant benefit occurring only when the subword unit corresponded to the…

Y. Takane and J. Sergent developed a model (MAXRT) for scaling same/different judgments and response times (RTs) simultaneously. The adequacy of the assumption that RTs are distributed log-normally is considered, and the effect of a violation of this assumption is investigated via a computer simulation. (SLD)

Tested comprehension of syntactic structures by presenting each structure with both plausible and implausible content. Results revealed that cognitive nonlinguistic factors were important for comprehension and that errors and reaction time increased with age. The minimal contribution of neuropsychological factors to this decline suggests that the…

This study sought to identify patterns of impaired acoustic laryngeal reaction time as a function of response complexity parallel to metabolic measures of brain function. Findings indicated that the disruption in speech motor control for 16 adult male developmental stutterers was systematically related to metabolic asymmetry in left superior and…

Fourteen undergraduate women (mean age 20) and 14 elderly women (mean age 70) executed a task requiring them to align a pointer with a target light in 5 positions. Elderly subjects had slower reaction and movement times. However, they were as capable as the younger women of correcting unanticipated movement errors. (SK)

This study examined effectiveness of a constant time delay (CTD) procedure in teaching social studies and health facts to five adolescents with learning or behavioral disorders. Students were given praise with and without additional information. Results indicated CTD procedures were reliable and effective, and students acquired nontargeted as well…

Infants' visual fixations were monitored while they viewed predictable and unpredictable sequences of stimuli. Analyses of anticipatory fixations indicated that by two months of age, infants form expectations for the reappearance of visual stimuli positioned opposite to each other. By three months, infants rapidly form expectations for asymmetric…

Twenty-two elementary-aged children with reading difficulties were administered multiple assessments, including the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT), Simple Reaction Time, and Complex Reaction Time. Results did not support a relationship between impulsivity, as measured by the MFFT, and academic progress in a classroom setting. (Author/JDD)

A study of simple reaction time (SRT) and choice reaction time (CRT) in 71 Chicano adolescents suggests that Hick's model is appropriate for studying cognitive information processing in Chicanos. No age or sex differences were found for SRT or CRT, although there were some differences in SRT by family income level. (KS)

Discusses electronic mail use in elementary/secondary education focusing on a comparison/review of award-winning Internet-based Virtual Reference Desk Exemplary Services (Ask Dr. Math, Ask A Volcanologist, How Things Work, AskERIC, Mad Scientist, Shamu, and American Art) that provide ask-an-expert question and answer services. Home pages, delivery…