Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Increased reaction time variability (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">RTV</jats:styled-content>) emerged, for many of us in the field, initially as more of an ‘irritant’: a strong correlate of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">ADHD</jats:styled-content> in particular that persisted when our pet hypotheses on other cognitive constructs withered. But the persistence of this now widespread observation – with high <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">RTV</jats:styled-content> reported across many disorders – has led to investigators paying increasingly more attention to this initially uncool concept. Time is ripe, it seems, for listening to what the ‘noise’ in our reaction time (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">RT</jats:styled-content>) data may tell us. It is against this background that the accompanying Annual Research Review by Karalunas and colleagues captures the current enthusiasm in trying to elucidate whether <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">RTV</jats:styled-content> reflects ‘a trans‐diagnostic phenotype that is associated with shared risk for several disorders or with symptom domains that cut across several disorder categories’ or whether <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">RTV</jats:styled-content> could be ‘decomposed into distinct processes that differ among psychiatric conditions’. Focusing on two neurodevelopmental disorders, <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">ADHD</jats:styled-content> and autism spectrum disorders (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">ASD</jats:styled-content>), Karalunas et al. performed two new meta‐analyses and provide an additional review of the literature, which lead to helpful interim conclusions and open a discussion (which this Commentary preludes) on the next steps in our attempts to make sense of the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">RT</jats:styled-content> ‘noise’.</jats:p>