Performance of university students on random number generation at different rates to evaluate executive functions

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the performance of adult young subjects in a Random Number Generation (RNG) task by controlling the response speed (RS).

Method: Sixty-nine university students of both sexes took part in the experiment (25.05 +/- 6.71 year-old). Participants were alloted into 3 groups which differed in RS rates to generate numbers: 1, 2 and 4 seconds to generate each number. A digital metronomer was used to control RS. Participants were asked to generate 100 numbers. The responses were measured through Evans's RNG Index.

Results: There were statistically significant differences among the groups [F (3, 68) = 7.120; p <.05]. Differences were localized between 1 and 2 seconds (p = 0.004) and between 1 and 4 seconds (p = 0.006). No differences were observed between 2 and 4 seconds (p = 0.985).

Conclusion: The present results suggest that the response speed in production of random numbers influences the performance of the Random Numbers Generation task.