[open] Response time accuracy

Comments

• sebastiaan

  November 2014 edited 4:18AM

  Hi Panos,

  There's extensive information about timing available here:

  • http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/miscellaneous/timing/

  However, there's not much Android-specific information, because most benchmarks have been done on regular PCs. You can take a look at this post though:

  • http://forum.cogsci.nl/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/4568#Comment_4568

  In general, I would say that the temporal precision on any reasonably modern Android device will be fine for reaction-time experiments.

  Cheers!
  Sebastiaan

  
  
  Check out SigmundAI.eu for our OpenSesame AI assistant!
  
• rip

  December 2014 edited December 2014

  In general, I would say that the temporal precision on any reasonably modern Android >device will be fine for reaction-time experiments.

  This is not true. In fact even modern Android devices will give you unacceptable reaction times with large variability between devices.

  For example:
  http://bgr.com/2013/09/20/iphone-android-touch-screen-responsiveness/

  Please do some more research on Android response times before you conduct your study. The key problem is really the variability between devices especially if you are conducting a remote study.
• sebastiaan

  December 2014 edited 4:18AM

  @rip Thanks for posting this information, that's very useful. I pasted the image below for reference.

  Assuming that these results are representative (there are many devices out there!), I would say that these benchmarks actually show that reaction times are acceptable, because, usually, what really matters is the variation of response times on a single device. And this appears to be in the order of 20 ms, which is not too different from what you would get on a regular keyboard.

  The fact that absolute reaction times vary wildly between devices is less important, assuming that your measures are 'within device'. It's the same situation as for between-subject variance: The fact that reaction times vary a lot between subjects doesn't matter too much if you're doing a within-subject study.

  

  
  
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• panos_uol

  February 2015 edited 4:18AM

  Thank you both for your comments! The study is within subjects so indeed inter-device variation would not be an issue. My real concern is how close the reaction time open sesame will give me as a result is to the real reaction time of the person. As far as I understood open sesame can pretty accurately estimate people's reaction times.