Reaction time test
Tap the panel, wait for it to change, then tap as fast as you can. You get five rounds.
Tap the panel, wait for it to change, then tap as fast as you can. You get five rounds.
| Round 1 | – |
|---|---|
| Round 2 | – |
| Round 3 | – |
| Round 4 | – |
| Round 5 | – |
| Average | – |
| Best | – |
| Your best average on this device | Not yet played |
A comparison with other players will appear here once 500 valid plays have been recorded on your kind of device. Until then there are too few plays to compare you with fairly.
What this measures
This is simple reaction time: how long you take to answer one expected signal with one fixed response. It is the quickest reaction a person can make on purpose, because there is nothing to choose between.
It measures one narrow kind of speed. A fast time here does not mean a high IQ, and a slow one does not mean a low one.
What is a typical time?
The clearest large study measured 1,469 adults aged 18 to 65 on laboratory equipment.1
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Average as recorded | 231 ms |
| Average after removing the delay added by the screen and mouse | 213 ms |
| Slowing with age | about 0.55 ms per year |
Why your number here runs slow
A web page cannot see the instant your finger lands. The screen takes time to draw the signal, the touch or key takes time to register, and the browser adds its own delay before the page is told.
In a 2021 study that pressed keys with a robot, response times recorded by web pages on four computers came out about 80 ms late on average, and about 100 ms late on some setups. Phones were not part of that study and may add more or less.2
In practice, compare your times with your own earlier times on the same device, and leave laboratory figures out of it.
What practice does
Play this a few times and you will get faster at it. That is practice at this one task. A 2016 review of the research found that brain training improves performance on the tasks that are trained, with little evidence that it carries over to everyday thinking.3
Sources
- Woods, D. L., Wyma, J. M., Yund, E. W., Herron, T. J., and Reed, B. (2015). Factors influencing the latency of simple reaction time. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 131. doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00131
- Anwyl-Irvine, A., Dalmaijer, E. S., Hodges, N., and Evershed, J. K. (2021). Realistic precision and accuracy of online experiment platforms, web browsers, and devices. Behavior Research Methods, 53, 1407–1425. doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01501-5
- Simons, D. J., et al. (2016). Do "brain-training" programs work? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(3), 103–186. doi.org/10.1177/1529100616661983
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