The Processing Speed of Humans on Various Visual Tasks: An Analysis of Relationships. Final Report.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the various techniques used to estimate the time required by the human to process a visual stimuli, i.e., recognize a stimulus input into the visual perceptual system. Sixteen tests of visual processing speed were administered to 110 undergraduate students. In summary, scores tended to be only slightly correlated. The largest correlations were produced by various forms of the same technique, i.e., tachistoscope test with numbers and tachistoscope test with letters. Given the generally low intercorrelations, the factor analysis did not yield interpretable factors across various types of tests. Data produced by this study indicates that estimates of the processing speed of individuals tend to be inconsistent across various types of tasks. The notion of perceptual style as characterized by processing speed seems invalid given the use of the tests included in this study. (Author/RC)