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We examined how people respond to time pressure factors in a complex, multi-stimulus environment. In Study 1, we manipulated time pressure by varying information load via stimulus complexity and the number of stimuli. In Study 2, we replaced the complexity manipulation with deadline – that is the time available to classify stimuli presented within a trial. We identified several ways that people can adapt to time pressure: Increasing the rate of information processing via effort or arousal, changing strategy by lowering response caution, and adjusting response bias. We tested these mechanisms using the LBA model of choice and response time (Brown & Heathcote, 2008). Whereas stimulus complexity influenced the quality of choice information, the number of stimuli influenced response caution, and deadline pressures caused a failure of encoding that was only partially compensated for by increased effort or arousal. Our results reveal that, rather than having a common response, people adapt, and fail to adapt, to the different time pressure factors in different ways.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Psychology
Research Group:	Cognitive and computational psychology
Research Field:	Decision making
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in psychology
UTAS Author:	Heathcote, A (Professor Andrew Heathcote)
ID Code:	128273
Year Published:	2018
Web of Science® Times Cited:	12
Deposited By:	Psychology
Deposited On:	2018-09-12
Last Modified:	2020-03-04
Downloads:	54 View Download Statistics