Using Android Smartphones to Collect Precise Measures of Reaction Times to Multisensory Stimuli.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Psychophysics

Background:

• Multisensory research is moving towards real-world settings.
• Smartphones are potential tools but need validation for precise stimulus delivery and reaction time (RT) recording.
• Existing research lacks systematic validation of smartphones for RT-based multisensory paradigms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a method for assessing smartphone temporal precision in synchronized auditory-tactile stimulus delivery and RT logging.
• To enhance RT measurement resolution on smartphones.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of conducting high-precision audio-tactile experiments on mobile devices.

Main Methods:

• Developed a reproducible method to quantify smartphone temporal precision for synchronized auditory-tactile stimuli and RT logging.
• Tested five Android devices, identifying two with sufficient precision.
• Implemented a technique combining touchscreen and accelerometer data to improve RT measurement resolution from 8.33 ms to 4 ms.

Main Results:

• Identified two out of five tested Android devices with adequate temporal precision for multisensory research.
• Enhanced RT measurement resolution to 4 ms by integrating touchscreen and accelerometer data.
• Successfully replicated a known audio-tactile multisensory effect (looming sounds reduced tactile RTs by 20-25 ms) with 20 participants on a validated smartphone.

Conclusions:

• A robust method for validating smartphone temporal precision in cognitive research has been established.
• High-precision audio-tactile paradigms are reliably implementable on mobile devices.
• This research enables scalable, ecologically valid multisensory studies in naturalistic environments.