Probing Human Response Times

Abstract

In a recent preprint \cite{eck}, the temporal dynamics of an e-mail network has been investigated by J.P. Eckmann, E. Moses and D. Sergi. Specifically, the time period between an e-mail message and its reply were recorded. It will be shown here that their data agrees quantitatively with the frame work proposed to explain a recent experiment on the response of ``internauts'' to a news publication \cite{www2} despite differences in communication channels, topics, time-scale and socio-economic characteristics of the two population. This suggest a generalized response time distribution $\sim t^{-1}$ for human populations in the absence of deadlines with important implications for psychological and social studies as well the study of dynamical networks.