A review of literature on machine pacing versus self pacing generally seems to favor self pacing. This literature primarily involves simple tasks with short cycle times and short performance times. In the present experiment the construction of electronic circuits generally took five minutes or longer each and was a fairly involved task with two-hour performance times. For the particular machine pacing rate chosen performance results were equivalent except hit (time) rate. This increased with machine pacing without an increase in perceived effort. It was concluded that a general conclusion regarding self or machine pacing is false and must be conditioned by the particulars of the task.
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