Selective Influence and Response Time Cumulative Distribution Functions in Serial-Parallel Task Networks

We analyze sets of mental processes, some of which are concurrent and some of which are sequential, under the assumption that the processes are partially ordered, that is, arranged in a directed acyclic network. Information about the process arrangement can be discovered by examining the effects on response time of selectively influencing process durations. Previous work has mainly focused on analyses of mean response times. Here we consider analyses based on cumulative distribution functions, for one of the major classes of directed acyclic networks, serial-parallel networks. When two processes are selectively influenced, patterns in the cumulative distribution functions can be used to test whether the processes are sequential or concurrent and whether the task network has AND gates or OR gates. Cumulative distribution functions are potentially more informative than means, and some previous results for means are shown to follow from our results for cumulative distribution functions. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.