Repetition Effects and Signal Classification Strategies in Serial Choice-Response Tasks

Repetition-effects (Bertelson, 1965) were examined in three serial self-paced choice-response tasks in which each response was made to all members of a class of more than one signal, and in one task in which eight different responses were each made to one of eight different signals. Three kinds of transition between successive responses occur in such tasks: transitions between Identical responses where the same signal and response are immediately repeated, transitions between Equivalent responses where the same response is made to a new signal and transitions between New responses where neither signal nor response are repeated. The relative reaction-times for these three classes of events were found to vary as a function of stimulus information load, as a function of response information load and as a function of the level of practice which subjects attained in the task in question. These variations allow some comment on the utility of recent models for serial and parallel stimulus analysis as explanatory constructs for the repetition-effect.