The up-right/down-left advantage occurs for both participant- and computer-paced conditions: an empirical observation on Adam, Boon, Paas, and Umiltà (1998).
When up and down stimuli are mapped to left and right keypresses or "left" and "right" vocalizations in a 2-choice reaction task, performance is often better with the up-right/down-left mapping than with the opposite mapping. J. J. Adam, B. Boon, F. G. W. C. Paas, and C. Umiltà (1998) presented evidence that the up-right/down-left advantage is obtained when trials are participant paced but not when they are computer paced. In all, 3 experiments are reported that show no difference in magnitude of the up-right/down-left advantage between computer-paced and participant-paced conditions. The advantage was eliminated, however, in Experiment 3 when a response deadline was imposed. Response speed, rather than participant or computer pacing of trials, is crucial.
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Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1364, USA. proctor@psych.purdue.edu
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D000704:Analysis of Variance; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D013997:Time Factors