Genetic analysis of reaction time variability: room for improvement?

Background. Increased reaction time variability (RTV) on cognitive tasks requiring a speeded response is characteristic of several psychiatric disorders. In attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the association with RT is strong phenotypically and genetically, yet high RTV is not a stable impairment but shows ADHD-sensitive improvement under certain conditions, such as those with rewards. The state regulation theory proposed that the RTV difference score, which captures change from baseline to a rewarded or fast condition, specifically measures ‘state regulation’. By contrast, the interpretation of RTV baseline (slow, unrewarded) scores is debated. We aimed to investigate directl…