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A Distributional Response Time Analysis of the Perceptual Disfluency Effect

Geller, J., Gomez, P., Buchanan, E., & Makowski, D.

Journal of Cognition, 2025

Perceptual disfluency — degrading a stimulus so that it is harder to take in — is normally summarised as a change in mean response time. This paper analyses the whole response time distribution instead, where a shift in the bulk and a change in the tail are separable and can offset one another in the mean.

Keywords: Reaction Times · Computational Models · Attention

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Geller, J., Gomez, P., Buchanan, E., & Makowski, D. (2025). A Distributional Response Time Analysis of the Perceptual Disfluency Effect. Journal of Cognition. https://doi.org/10.5334/joc.469

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The Reality Bending Lab, led by Dominique Makowski at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, conducts world-leading research on reality perception, illusions, fake news, AI-beliefs, deception and its links with emotions, cognitive control and the Self. Using recording signals from the body (ECG, EDA…) and the brain (EEG), we analyse data using advanced modelling (Bayesian statistics, chaos theory, computational models) and develop open-source tools to improve neuropsychological science.

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