Processing time decreases globally at an exponential rate during childhood and adolescence.
Children (N = 108) from 6 to 16 years of age and adults (N = 108) were tested on four speeded tasks that included 19 different experimental conditions. The 6- to 16-year-olds' response times (RTs) increased linearly as a function of adults' RTs in those same conditions. The slope of this linear function declined exponentially with age at a rate that could be predicted accurately from values established in previous research.
Kail
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Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011930:Reaction Time