A system for psychomotor evaluation; design, implementation and practice effects in volunteers

Abstract

This paper describes the design, implementation and assessment of PsychE, psychomotor evaluation system. Six standard tests are included: numeric vigilance, a dual task, probed memory recall, simple reaction time, choice reaction time and semantic long-term memory. The test presentations are described in detail. Practice effects were assessed in 10 healthy volunteers and were only evident in the performance measures for the simple reaction time test. For the remaining five tests, stable performance was reached within a single test session. The volunteers were healthy and most were regular users of computers. Therefore, the lack of practice effects cannot be assumed for the general population. A control group is essential for all studies using these tests. The system is implemented on an IBM-compatible personal computer and includes a database shell for the convenient collection, storage and analysis of performance data.