Comprehension and deliberation: decomposing response time in economic experiments

Eszter Timár (), Hubert János Kiss () and Dániel Horn ()
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Eszter Timár: Corvinus University of Budapest
Hubert János Kiss: ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies; Corvinus University of Budapest
Dániel Horn: ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies; Corvinus University of Budapest

No 2611, KRTK-KTI WORKING PAPERS from Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies

Abstract: Response time is increasingly used as a window to look into decision-making process in economic experiments. Yet its interpretation is ambiguous: a fast response may reflect quick comprehension or an impulsive choice. We show that the source of this ambiguity is conceptual and can be resolved by a simple design feature: the separation of instruction and decision screens. Using data from approximately 1,100 students in a lab-in-the-field experiment linked to standardized test scores, we decompose total response time into comprehension time and deliberation time. We show that each component is informative in its own right. Comprehension time is correlated with cognitive ability, providing a cost-free ability proxy in any experiment with split screens. Deliberation time is independent of ability but responds to the structure of the choice: heuristic choices are faster and decisions near the indifference point take longer. The decomposition recovers behavioral patterns that total response time obscures.

Keywords: response time; comprehension; deliberation; cognitive ability; experimental economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 C91 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-09
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