Latency recording measures the amount of time that lapses between an antecedent and when someone begins to perform a target behavior????????????? . The latency of a behaviour is an important component of a behaviour in many different circumstances.
For example, if you see a red light, the latency between seeing the red light and stopping needs to be a relatively short period of time.? Similarly, if playing a videogame, there is an optimal period between seeing a relevant SD and engaging in the correct response. If you take too long, a behaviour will not be reinforced.
Let?s look at some examples of latency recording:
Meghan is a teacher who is interested in how long it takes a student to go to their seat after the school bell rings. She starts a stopwatch when the bell rings and stop it when the student sits down.? If Meghan concludes that the time taken is too long and that her students are missing out on learning time, she might seek to reduce the latency of her students? responding.
As you see from this example, when using latency recording, an observer measures the elapsed time from the onset of a stimulus to the initiation of the target response.????????????
Another example might be with regard to the use of language:
Daniel is planning on taking his 4 year old daughter to meet her relatives in Italy. He has been teaching his daughter Italian so she can talk and play with her cousins. He interested in how long his daughter takes to respond to a question in Italian.? He asks her the question and then records how long it takes for her to begin responding. He is measuring latency. He finds that while she answers the question correctly, she takes a long time to respond. He decides to work with her to reduce the latency of responding, so that she will contact more naturally occurring reinforcement when interacting with her relatives.
In summary, latency refers to the amount of time it took for a behavior to occur following the presentation of a stimulus. It can be an important variable when it comes to people?s behaviour contacting reinforcement in their everyday environments.? To record latency, you start a timer when an SD is presented and stop it, when the learner initiates a response.???????????????????????