THE EFFECTS OF HYPOXIA ON SERIAL RESPONSE TIME
- Authors
- Corporate Authors
- Defence and Civil Inst of Environmental Medicine, Downsview ONT (CAN);York Univ, Toronto ONT (CAN) Dept of Psychology
- Abstract
- The effects of hypoxia were investigated using a serial response time task where number of choices, movement distance and stimulus brightness were varied. Hypoxia was induced with a low percentage oxygen mixture and blood oxygen saturation was controlled at 64.3%, equivalent to 6700m. Hypoxia increased response latency more under low than high stimulus brightness, added a constant to the function representing number of choices but increased the slope of the movement distance function. These results were interpreted as pointing to hypoxia increasing simple reaction time by decreasing the effective brightness of the stimulus and interfering with some aspect of the information processing system controlling movement time. Error rate was increased slightly and the pattern of latency around an error led to the suggestion that increased error rates with hypoxia may reflect shifts in the speed-accuracy operating characteristics.
- Report Number
- 81-P-08 —
- Date of publication
- 01 Jan 1982
- Number of Pages
- 13
- Reprinted from
- Ergonomics, vol 25, no 3, 1982, p 189-201
- DSTKIM No
- 83-00324
- CANDIS No
- 38475
- Format(s):
- Hardcopy;Originator's fiche received by DSIS
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