TAXONOMIZING COGNITIVE PROCESSES BY MENTAL CHRONOMETRY

反应时间（RT）是一个普遍的依赖性措施，在许多领域， 心理学研究 RT是普遍存在的，因为它可以是一个非常 一个有用的证据来源，关于一系列的心理过程， 感知、记忆、注意力、推理、判断、解决问题 等 然而，RT的使用却遇到了困难。 可以 来构建完全不同的心理功能模型， 因此，在没有对RT做出强有力的假设的情况下， 组织的心理过程，RT往往不被证明是一个 高度诊断工具，用于回答某些类型的重要理论问题 问题，例如，这些过程是否在一个 连续流或离散量子。 一种新的实验技术 一种称为速度-精度分解（SAD）的方法克服了许多限制 通过对RT试验的分布进行统计分解， 速度-精度权衡试验，这种技术允许一个跟踪出 心理过程的时间过程。 这些信息使我们能够回答 许多重要的问题，例如过程输出是否是离散的， 连续的 通过使用这种技术来分析受试者在一个 各种各样的实验任务，应该有可能得出一个 每个任务的时间过程“配置文件”。 由于时间相似的进程 课程应该有一定的共同建筑特色，它应该是 根据这些，我们可以得出一个心理过程的一般分类法。 数据区. 这样的分类可以澄清理论化 在心理学的不同领域，导致新的概念和研究思路。 这些特征和分类也可以为诊断提供基础 各种形式的心理和神经病理（例如，如果 个人对特定任务的时间进程配置文件不符合 这项工作的标准）。

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).