TAXONOMIZING COGNITIVE PROCESSES BY MENTAL CHRONOMETRY

反应时间(RT)在许多领域都是一种普遍依赖的度量 心理学研究。RT之所以无处不在，是因为它可能是一种极端的 有关一系列相关心理过程的有用证据来源 感知、记忆、注意力、推理、判断、解决问题， 然而，RT的使用充满了困难。这是有可能的 构建完全不同的心理功能模型来预测 对RT也有类似的影响。因此，在不对 心理过程的组织，RT通常不被证明是一种 回答某些问题的高度诊断性工具。重要理论的类型 问题，例如，这些过程是否在 连续流，或离散量子。一种新的实验技术 称为速度-精度分解(SAD)克服了许多限制 RT.通过对RT试验的分布进行统计分解 速度-精度折衷试验，这项技术允许一个人追踪到 心理过程的时间进程。这样的信息使我们能够回答 许多重要问题，例如过程输出是离散的还是 连续的。通过使用这一技术来分析受试者在 各种各样的实验任务，应该可以派生出一个 每项任务的时间进程“概况”。由于具有相似时间的进程 课程应该有某些共同的建筑特征，它应该是 在此基础上推导出心理过程的一般分类是可能的 配置文件。这样的分类法可以澄清理论化与 在心理学的不同领域，引发了新的概念和研究思路。 这些配置文件和分类也可以为诊断 各种形式的心理和神经病理(例如，如果 特定任务的个人时间进程配置文件不符合 该任务的标准)。

Reaction time (RT) is a pervasive dependent measure in many areas of psychological research. RT is pervasive because it can be an extremely useful source of evidence concerning a host of mental processes associated with perception, memory, attention, reasoning, judgment, problem solving, etc. However, the use of RT is frought with difficulties. It is possible to construct radically different models of mental functioning that predict similar effects on RT. So, without making strong assumptions about the organization of mental processes, RT frequently does not prove to be a highly diagnostic tool for answering certain.types of important theoretical questions, for instance, whether these processes yield outputs in a continuous stream, or in discrete quanta. A new experimental technique called speed-accuracy decomposition (SAD) overcomes many of the limitations of RT. By statistically decomposing distributions of RT trials and speed-accuracy tradeoff trials, this technique allows one to trace out the time-course of mental processes. Such information enables us to answer many important questions, such as whether process outputs are discrete or continuous. By using this technique to analyze subjects' performance in a broad variety of experimental tasks, it should be possible to derive a time-course "profile" for each task. Since processes with similar time courses should have certain architectural features in common, it should be possible to derive a general taxonomy of mental processes based on these profiles. Such a taxonomy could clarify relationships between theorizing in diverse areas of psychology, leading to new concepts and research ideas. These profiles and taxonomy could also provide a basis for diagnosing various forms of psychological and neurological pathology (e.g., if an individual's timecourse profile for a particular task does not conform to the standard for that task).