TRANSCEPHALIC DC POTENTIAL AND REACTION TIME PERFORMANCE

The relationship between transcephalic DC potential changes and simple serial reaction time performance was investigated with the hypothesis that Ss exhibiting more positive TCDC shift would be slower in RT performance than Ss with less positive (or negative) shift. In two experiments, measurements of shift in DC from an initial pre‐performance reading to points just before, during, and following RT performance were made. Equal division into groups based on those Ss with most shift in a positive direction versus those with least positive (or negative) shift provided two groups of 12 male Ss in Experiment I, which used constant intertrial interval, and two groups of 11 Ss each in Experiment II, which used random intertrial intervals. The differences in performance between the groups were consistently in the direction expected by the hypothesis. In Experiment I, analysis of variance revealed significant interactions between groups and RT performance blocks over time. Significant differences between groups as well as significant interaction effects were found in Experiment II. Copyright © 1969, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved