Storage of Information about Time

Abstract

An experiment is described in which the detrimental effects of an auxiliary task on reaction time to periodically presented light stimuli were studied. RT stimuli were presented periodically to one group of Ss throughout the experiment and aperiodically to another. During the first half of the experiment both groups performed the RT task while simultaneously performing a key-pressing task, then both groups performed the RT task only. When performing the RT task only, the RTs of the ‘periodic’ group initially were of the same magnitude as those of the ‘aperiodic’ group but on subsequent periodic trials the RTs became significantly shorter. The results support the hypothesis that ability to gauge the time separating periodically occurring RT stimuli is impaired when S is required simultaneously to perform an auxiliary task.