The present study was conducted to examine the influence of sex, age, and trial blocks on the simple reaction times of elementary school children. Each of 78 right-handed 6-, 8-, and 10-yr.-old boys and girls depressed a key in response to the onset of a blue light imperative stimulus for 4 familiarization- and 20 test-trials. Changes across the test-trials were assessed by grouping simple RTs into five blocks of four reactions each. A three-way factorial analysis of variance (sex × age × trial blocks) with repeated measures on the last factor indicated that all three main effects were significant and that none of the interactions was significant. Boys reacted faster than girls, simple RT decreased with each successive age and was faster during trial Blocks 1 and 2 than at Block 5.
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