APA Dictionary of Psychology

a simple laboratory test designed to measure participants’ response times as they perform very easy tasks and make what are presumed by the researchers to be simple decisions. Examples of elementary cognitive tasks include selecting the “odd man out” among three or more alternatives, identifying whether a single presented number (or letter) was or was not part of a previously presented set, and indicating whether or not a statement agrees with a pictorial representation. The low-level, or basic, processes measured by elementary cognitive tasks are believed to be closely related to physiological functioning and thus primarily under the influence of endogenous, inherited factors.