Mental Chronometry

Mental chronometry is the use of response time in perceptual-motor tasks to infer the content, duration, and temporal sequencing of cognitive operations. Mental chronometry is one of the core paradigms of experimental and cognitive psychology, and has found application in various disciplines including cognitive psychophysiology/cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neuroscience to elucidate mechanisms underlying cognitive processing.

Mental chronometry is studied using the measurements of reaction time (RT). Reaction time is the elapsed time between the presentation of a sensory stimulus and the subsequent behavioral response. In psychometric psychology it is considered to be an index of speed of processing. That is, it indicates how fast the thinker can execute the mental operations needed by the task at hand. In turn, speed of processing is considered an index of processing efficiency. The behavioral response is typically a button press but can also be an eye movement, a vocal response, or some other observable behavior.