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Manipulation of dominant/non-dominant hand and ipsilateral/contralateral movement as a function of response
Perceptual and Motor Skills
|February 1, 1983
Insights
Children
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Developmental psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Response organization is crucial for efficient motor control.
- Understanding how children organize responses informs developmental theories.
- Pre-cueing information impacts reaction time in various age groups.
Purpose of the Study:
- To measure response organization effects in 30 fourth-grade children.
- To investigate the role of response predictability and uncertainty on reaction time.
- To determine the influence of hand-specific cues versus general response location cues.
Main Methods:
- A reaction time task was administered to 30 fourth-grade children.
- Participants received pre-cues regarding ipsilateral/contralateral responses, hand use, or response side.
- Varying degrees of response uncertainty and predictability were manipulated.
Main Results:
- Knowing which hand to use significantly influenced response organization.
- Increased reaction time was observed when hand uncertainty was high, despite other pre-cued variables.
- Response predictability, particularly hand information, is a key factor in children's motor control.
Conclusions:
- Hand-specific information is a primary driver of response organization in children.
- Uncertainty regarding hand choice, even with other cues, impairs reaction time.
- These findings highlight the importance of specific motor planning cues for developing cognitive systems.
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to measure response organization effects in 30 children in Grade 4. On a reaction time task, subjects were pre-cued as to the forthcoming response, being either an ipsilateral or contralateral response, which hand to use, or on which side the response would be. In each condition, there were varying degrees of response uncertainty and predictability. Analysis indicated that knowing which hand to use played a major role in response organization. However, when the subject was unsure of which hand to use but the other variables were pre-cued, reaction time increased significantly.