Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-v2bm5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-07T09:03:27.296Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rate of Addition as a Function of Difficulty and Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

James E. Birren  and
Jack Botwinick
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Rate of addition was studied as a function of difficulty as measured by problem length. The hypothesis was tested that the rate of addition would decline as a function of the logarithm of the number of addition operations per problem. The test material required the rapid addition of single columns of digits ranging from two to twenty-five digits in length. Rate of uncorrected addition declined as a power function of problem length and the rate of correct addition declined as an exponential function of length. Results indicated that subjects who varied in age and mental status could be differentiated according to the parameters defining the curves of addition rate as a function of length.

Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1951 , pp. 219 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © 1951 The Psychometric Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The cooperation of the staff of the Baltimore City Schools, the cooperation of the staffs of the Spring Grove and the Springfield Maryland State Hospitals and the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, the assistance of Miss Charlotte Fox in devising the test material and gathering some of the data, and the computational assistance of Mrs. Betty Benser are gratefully acknowledged.

References

Birren, J. E., and Botwinick, J.The relation of writing speed to age and to the senile psychoses. J. consult, Psychol., 1951, 15, (In Press).Google Scholar
Coombs, C. H. The concepts of reliability and homogeneity. Educ. psychol. Meas., 1950, 10, 43–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guilford, J. P. The psychophysics of mental test difficulty. Psychometrika, 1937, 2, 121–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guilford, J. P. The difficulty of a test and its factor composition. Psychometrika, 1941, 6, 67–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landahl, H. D. Time scores and factor analysis. Psychometrika, 1940, 5, 67–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oehrn, A. Experimentelle Studien zur Individualpsychologie. Psychol. Arbeit., 1895, 1, 92–151.Google Scholar
Richardson, M. W. The relation between the difficulty and the differential validity of a test. Psychometrika, 1936, 1, 33–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snedecor, G. W. Statistical methods (pp. 374–399). Ames, Iowa: Iowa State College Press, 1950.Google Scholar
Tate, M. W. Individual differences in speed of response in mental test materials of varying degrees of difficulty. Educ. psychol. Meas., 1948, 8, 353–374.Google ScholarPubMed
Thurstone, L. L. Ability, motivation, and speed. Psychometrika, 1937, 2, 249–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogt, R. Ueber Ablenkbarkeit und Gewöhnungafähigkeit. Psychol. Arbeit., 1899, 3, 62–201.Google Scholar
Whipple, G. M. Manual of mental and physical tests: Part II (pp. 460–485). Baltimore: Warwick & York, 1915.Google Scholar