Individual differences in reaction times and web-based experiments

Abstract

Individual differences in reaction time are usually considered as noises in the study of cognitive psychology. In some situations, however, the individual differences provide useful insights for understanding the mechanism of human cognition. In this article, we focus on the experience of action video games and athletes as such examples and selectively review these studies. In addition, we briefly summarize web-based experiments that have been recently attracting psychologist. Web-based experiments have a benefit to easily increase a sample size and thereby a statistical power. However, one may wonder about the reliability of web-based studies. Therefore, we try to discuss the reliability especially in terms of the accuracy of stimulus presentation duration and reaction times recording.