Noise-induced transition in human reaction times

Abstract

The human reaction/response time can be defined as the time elapsed from the onset of stimulus presentation until a response occurs in many sensory and cognitive processes. A reaction time model based on Piéron’s law is investigated. The model shows a noise-induced transition in the moments of reaction time distributions due to the presence of strong additive noise. The model also demonstrates that reaction times do not follow fluctuation scaling between the mean and the variance but follow a generalized version between the skewness and the kurtosis. The results indicate that noise-induced transitions in the moments govern fluctuations in sensory–motor transformations and open an insight into the macroscopic effects of noise in human perception and action. The conditions that lead to extreme reaction times are discussed based on the transfer of information in neurons.

Intriguing yet simple skewness: kurtosis relation in economic and demographic data distributions, pointing to preferential attachment processes

“…Other cases where a simple K − S relation is found are in surface roughness analysis (Isoda and Kawashima, 2013;Sharifi-viand et al, 2014). It is also worth mentioning the contributions in medical and biological fields; they pertain to fluctuation responses in the visual cortex (Medina and Diaz, 2016a, 2016c or ventricular fibrillation (Gonzalez-Gonzalez et al, 2013); an apparently comprehensive review about "biological and psychological aspects of the K-S can be found in Cain et al (2016).…”

Erratum: Noise-induced transition in human reaction times (2016 J. Stat. Mech.: Theory Exp. 9 093502)

“…Here, the additive noise becomes small at near-threshold conditions, ∀ I ∼ I 0 ⇒ ρ → 0; being stronger at marked supra-threshold conditions, ∀ I I 0 ⇒ ρ 1. Therefore, when we said 'strong additive noise', it should be said, 'weak additive noise' and vice versa across the entire text in [1]. There is a noised-induced transition and the transition zone is now found at ρ ≈ 2.…”

“…Due to an error, the two limiting regimes of the theory were interchanged. We regret to inform the readers that equation (16) in [1], that describes the ratio of the additive to the multiplicative noise in human reaction times, is flawed. Here, we report the correct expression, and, accordingly the modified figures 2(b), 3, and 4.…”

“…Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Equations ( 1) and (2) replace equations (14b) and (15) in [1], respectively. Then, it follows in page 9, section 3.2, that the ratio ρ of the additive to the multiplicative noise strength is written as:…”