RELATION OF SUCCESSIVE PERCENTILES OF REACTION-TIME DISTRIBUTIONS TO COGNITIVE VARIABLES AND ADULT AGE

The reaction time distributions for each individual in a moderately la rge sample of adults were analyzed in terms of percentiles, and then e ach reaction time percentile was correlated with a number of cognitive variables and with age. A very similar pattern was evident across fiv e sets of reaction time tasks. This consisted of the correlations with the cognitive variables remaining stable, but those with adult age de creasing, from the fastest to the slowest responses emitted by the ind ividual. Contrary to recent reports (Kranzler, 1992; Larson & Alderton , 1990), these results suggest that all portions of the reaction time distribution contain qualitatively similar individual difference infor mation.