부산대학교 도서관

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference of information processing and the age through the manipulation of long or short foreperiod time in the approach of simple auditory reaction time test for middle/late children. Method: Eight-year-old, ten-year-old, and twelve-year-old children, 192 in total, were recruited as the voluntary participants in this study. Every participant was asked to press a switch to assess the response time after the stimulus of voice that following the warning signal around 6 second and 30 second. The Catsys 2000 system was used to generate the signal of stimulus and to acquire the information of reaction time. Results: The results showed the reaction time in ten-year-old children were slower than twelve-year-old children in the condition of short foreperiod, but not in the condition of long foreperiod. There was no statistical difference between ten-year-old and twelve-year-old children for the variability of reaction time. The reaction time and variability of reaction time in eight-year-old children were the highest significantly. Conclusion: It indicate the ability of information processing for twelve-year-old children regress same as ten-year-old children under the condition of long foreperiod. The ability of information processing is an unstable stage in the age of twelve.