Personality and the psychological refractory period: No evidence for an extraversion- or intelligence-related effect.

The psychological refractory period (PRP) refers to a major bottleneck of information processing that becomes evident when participants are required to respond to two signals (S1 and S2) presented in rapid succession. Typically, the response to S2 becomes increasingly delayed with decreasing stimulus onset asynchrony between S1 and S2. Several studies suggest differences in speed of sensorimotor information processing between introverts and extraverts. Speed of information processing is also positively related to mental ability. The present study investigates whether these individual differences in speed of information processing may reflect differences in PRP. For this purpose 80 female undergraduates were tested with a standard PRP design using an auditory two-choice Task 1 and a visual two-choice Task 2. Although a general PRP effect could be shown, there was no evidence for extraversion- or intelligence-related differences in PRP. These findings indicate that the PRP effect represents a robust phenomenon which is largely independent of extraversion- and intelligence-related individual differences in speed of information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)