Measuring corrective reaction time with the intermittent illumination model

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to develop a methodology based on Drury's [1] intermittent illumination model to directly measure individuals' corrective reaction times, without the two methodology-related issues of Lin & Drury [2]. Six highly-practiced participants performed self-paced circular tracking tasks by using a modified LED monitor in a darkened room. While performing movements, the monitor's backlight was intermittently turned on and off to generate five values of expected delay of visual feedback. Expected delay and measured speed were used with the intermittent illumination model to calculate individuals' corrective reaction times. The results of showed that the model fitted the data very well, accounts for at least 94.6 % of the variance. The mean corrective reaction time was 273 milliseconds and ranged from 170 to 460 milliseconds for individual participants. While previous studies only reported group means, this was the first study to report individuals' corrective reaction times. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.