Response time data

Abstract Traditionally the purview of psycholinguistic experiments conducted in controlled laboratory environments, researchers can now deploy response time tasks such as lexical decision tasks or self-paced reading paradigms into experiments run on the internet. Data from such tasks are of interest to researchers in applied linguistics, as these data provide insight into the cognitive representation of language (i.e., the mental lexicon) of first, second, and additional users of different languages. This chapter first explains what response time data are and how they are measured, with a particular focus on lexical decision tasks as a core example. Common research questions associated with response time data are also provided. The chapter then reviews how such tasks are implemented online, and afterwards, five example studies are reviewed. Finally, the chapter discusses ethical and practical challenges and considerations for future work in this area.