Response time differences across card sorting task complexity

¶ … Card Sorting Experiment

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MEAN RESPONSE TIMES

Method

Participants

Participants were 15 students in the Experimental Psychology class in Queen College. Three of the participants were male; twelve were female. Ages ranged from 20 to 32 years, with the mean age being 24.62 years. Participants showed no visual or motor defects and reported none that would have excluded them from completing the study. The nature of their participation was such that they were fulfilling an academic requirement, as this experiment was one assigned by the teacher for the class.

Procedure

In this study, the participants completed a sorting task. Participants were divided into three groups of five persons each. Each group participated in the same tasks in the same order. The first task consisted of sorting the deck of 40 cards by color into 2 stacks -- one for red cards and one for black cards. The second task consisted of sorting the deck by high and low cards into 2 stacks -- Ace was treated as having a value of 1, so low cards in the first stack were Ace through 5 and high cards in the second stack were 6 through 10. The third task consisted of sorting by odds and even numbers -- the first stack being odds -- Ace, 3, 5, 7, 9 and the second stack being evens -- 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. The participants were told to sort the stacks as quickly as possible and at the conclusion of each task, once measurements were recorded, the decks were shuffled for the next task. The dependent variable (DV) in each of the tasks was the response time of the participants. The independent variable (IV) was the sorting task. The DV was consistently measured using the smart phone stop watch to the hundredth of a second (.01).

Before each task of the procedure was performed, the cards were shuffled. After shuffling, cards were given to the participant face down in the palm of the hand. Timing commenced when the first card was placed on the table and ended when the last card was placed in the correct pile.

If an error occurred -- a participant placed a card in the wrong stack -- the experimenter tapped the card and timing continued while the card was placed in the right pile. If a card fell from the table, timing stopped and the experimenter had the card given back to the participant and timing then continued.

Once the tasks were accomplished, measurements were taken and the descriptive statistic mean RT, SEM RT was calculated under each task. A one-way repeated measure for ANOVA was utilized post hoc testing.

Results

The results of the manipulation indicated that group-mean RTs varied according to the IV (type of task performed). For instance, the color-oriented task in which participants separated cards according to black or red color, produced the fastest response, while separating cards according to odds and evens took the most amount of time for the three groups. Figure 1 shows the breakdown of mean response times for the three tasks.

Figure 1. Sorting Task Response Times.

The figure shows the mean of response times according to the type of sorts performed by the participants. The mean for color sorts was 37 seconds, for high-low sorts, 41.87 seconds, and for odds-evens sorts 46.27 seconds. SEM for color was 2.83, for high-low 2.88, and for odds-evens 3.87.

The data show that the group-mean response time under the 2-alternative condition was less than the group mean response time under the 4-alternative condition. Additionally, color as opposed to numerical alternatives produced fastest mean response times, followed by the numerical alternative that required 2 basic categorizations. The difference between group means was found to be significant, t (df)=t value, p