Hack 11. Why People Don’t Work Like Elevator Buttons
More intense signals cause faster reaction times, but there are diminishing returns: as a stimulus grows in intensity, eventually the reaction speed can’t get any better. The formula that relates intensity and reaction speed is Pieron’s Law.
It’s a common illusion that if you are in a hurry for the elevator you can make it come quicker by pressing the button harder. Or more often. Or all the buttons at once. It somehow feels as if it ought to work, although of course we know it doesn’t. Either the elevator has heard you, or it hasn’t. How loud you call doesn’t make any difference to how long it’ll take to arrive.
But then elevators aren’t like people. People do respond quicker to more stimulation, even on the most fundamental level. We press the brake quicker for brighter stoplights, jump higher at louder bangs. And it’s because we all do this that we all fall so easily into thinking that things, including elevators, should behave the same way.
1.12.1. In Action
Give someone this simple task: she must sit in front of a screen and press a button as quickly as she can as soon as she sees a light flash on. If people were like elevators, the time it takes to press the button wouldn’t be affected by the brightness of the light or the number of lights.
But people aren’t like elevators and we respond quicker to brighter lights; in fact, the relationship between the physical intensity of the light and the average speed of response follows a precise mathematical form. This form is captured by an equation called Pieron’s Law. Pieron’s Law says that the time to respond to a stimulus is related to the stimulus intensity by the formula:
Reaction Time
R0 + kI-b
Reaction Time is the time between the stimulus appearing and you responding. I is the physical intensity of the signal. R0 is the minimum time for any response, the asymptotic value representing all the components of the reaction time that don’t vary, such as the time for light to reach your eye. k and b are constants that vary depending on the exact setup and the particular person involved. But whatever the setup and whoever the person, graphically the equation looks like Figure 1-2.
Taken From : Mind Hacks
