2
$\begingroup$

I'm an undergraduate linguistics student with a strong interest in cognitive psychology of visual attention. Nowadays, I'm studying on an undergraduate research project in which I'm planning to use reaction-time measurement and oddball presentation. However, when I dive into the oddball paradigm literature it seemed to me that it is only used with some other neuro-imaging techniques like EEG, fMRI etc. So I started to wonder if it is inappropriate to use oddball in order to elicit some behavioral data for some reason. Although I've searched for this on Google Scholar or Science Direct, I could not find anything directly related to this.

Is it uncommon / inappropriate / methodologically flawed to use the oddball paradigm only with reaction time? If so, why?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Whether it's appropriate depends on the research question you are after, but I don't know anything that would make it flawed outright. What have you searched for that you haven't found? Searching "reaction time" oddball gives a lot of results that seem relevant to you, though it seems like the reaction time differences are subtle compared to other types of comparisons. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Jul 1, 2019 at 0:04
  • $\begingroup$ @BryanKrause I have searched for some studies that use these just as I've described. The results that I've found were almost always --actually, if I'm not mistaken, it was always the case -- indicating that people use it with some other neuro-imaging techniques. $\endgroup$
    – Postmodern Knight
    Commented Jul 1, 2019 at 22:04
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I think that's more because it's hard to publish anything with just psychophysics, especially when at least EEG is relatively inexpensive and non-invasive. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Jul 1, 2019 at 22:18

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1
$\begingroup$

First off, I'm not an expert, but the oddball paradigm was initially developed for use in event-related potential (ERP) studies (basically EEG measures) (source: Wikipedia). Hence, because of historical reasons, you see this paradigm pop up especially in ERP studies. However, the task has been used in purely psychophysical experiments as well, without EEG or imaging (e.g., Stockdale et al. (2011)).

Reference
- Stockdale et al., Vis Res (2011); 51(11): 1232–8

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Nice reference find; a spent a bit of time like OP looking for a study that didn't also have ERPs without luck. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 19:57
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @BryanKrause - thanks - admittedly; wikipedia O.o But I checked the reference and by the looks of it it's a genuine one w/o any objective measures of any kind. $\endgroup$
    – AliceD ♦
    Commented Jul 6, 2019 at 11:18

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.