It seems my critics are right: I am a little slower than average.
Patrick Parker (of Mokuren Dojo) and I were discussing the feasibility of intelligent responses to physical attack. Patrick asked:
What exactly do you have to do to get the faster intelligence that Chris says we need? Well, really we can’t. From my understanding of the neuromuscular machine I don’t really think that you can make the brain/spine/muscle machine work faster than it already does. There is hardwired into us about a ¾ second delay (if not more) in the OODA loop.
A search for evidence supporting or refuting this unavoidable delay, led me to the Human Benchmark reaction time test.
My test results were: 283ms for the first set, 260ms for the second set, and 221ms for the third set of clicks. With a little more practice, I could probably reach the statistical average measurement of 200 milliseconds.
This visual-motor game is not an good measure of self-defense skill—wherein you are encouraged to use all five senses, and especially to cheat—but it does highlight an important physical limitation.
What are your test results?
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32 responses so far ↓
1
Arne Midtlund
// Jan 27, 2008
339,6 ms (Tried five times)
2
Patrick Parker
// Jan 27, 2008
I averaged 305.2 after 5 tries. Cool game!
3
Patrick Parker
// Jan 27, 2008
I keep coming back to this online tester you put up. Cool game.
What would be really cool to see would be a similar speed tester that flashes a light and you have to press a button with your foot. That would be a better simulation of the reaction speed in a whole-body activity.
Don’t they make kicking pads tht provide a light/sound stimulus and measure your reaction time to the point you strike the pad? Has anyone played with one of those things?
4
Dean
// Jan 28, 2008
Patrick:
On the National Geographic special, “Fight Science,” they set up a rig with some hand and foot targets (one for each limb). Each pad had a light on it that would flash, and the practitioner (the only televised one was a Taekwondo champion from Australia) had to hit the specific target–reaction time was figured from there.
Back to the post:
I love games like this–except I get really twitchy and usually accidentally click a few times before the light changes. If we ignore my false clicks (it ought to penalize you for those…), I’m 200 after 5 tries (best was 174, but I think that was a fluke). On a side note, I tried using direct and peripheral vision, and found that my reaction times for peripheral vision was slightly better than a focused gaze–try it!
5
Thomas
// Jan 28, 2008
259.6
I feel like it’s definitely something to play around with, but not something I’d stake my life on.
6
Michael
// Jan 28, 2008
180.2 after 5 tries. I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead.
7
Steve
// Jan 28, 2008
I averaged 192, and my best was 187. Neat game.
8
Kungfuguy
// Jan 29, 2008
man i only got 220.6 but i was’nt trying my hardest i had my music up 2 loud
9
Kungfuguy
// Jan 29, 2008
202.3 was my average after 5 tries 186 was my best
10
Patrick Parker
// Jan 29, 2008
Here’s another interesting psych test that involves reaction time, but it is a more complex task, similar to the go/nogo test described on that wikipedia page. It doesn’t give you results on the reaction times, but it is interesting to watch yourself to see how long you get stuck when trying to recognize and judge something (the OO in OODA) before you can decide and act (press the right button).
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/featuredtask.html
It is also interesting in a political sense.
11
Rhei, writer Surefirewealth.com
// Jan 29, 2008
Cool game!
Wishing that there will lots of this… It’s really wonderful in a way that I’m stress free (for a while…)
I’ll encourage my friends to check and try this out. It’s really adorable, I will try this all over again.
12
rahul
// Feb 1, 2008
hi boys
i am a player of karate
3rd dan black belt i m having some problem in my wrist when i punch please boys help me.one of my friend said me to use gripstik he said that it will give strength to my hands please you all see this website and tell tell is it good for wrist or not.
http://www.gripstik.com
13
Kungfuguy
// Feb 6, 2008
rahul there are a lot of things that can help your wrist get a stress ball and squezze or jsut roll your wrist around whileholding something tight there are a lot of things you can do but i reccomond seeing a doctor
14
Michael Henderson
// Sep 6, 2008
215 ms: I used to think I had amazing reaction on account of me being an android. I have now discovered I have perfectly average reactions, demonstrating that my human emulation chip has been well specified.
15
Soni
// Sep 22, 2008
I hope you know that this doesn’t have anything to do with martial arts.
Here there is one option(red turns green), one response to choose from(mouse click), and one response to do(click).
In a real fight, there are many way you could be being hit, many option to indentify the attack and choose the correct block, and many technics to exceed.
The only way to reduce your reaction time is to pratice.
16
Ng kian Ming
// Nov 14, 2008
cool
17
zhric
// Nov 16, 2008
143 ms 5 tries
18
farid
// Jun 18, 2009
Nice game. My third try is 194. Thanks for the information n link
19
farid
// Jun 18, 2009
my fastest try is 169. I think i have train my reflect harder
20
Josh Young
// Jun 19, 2009
Maybe my clicker takes a moment to depress…
i took it once (5 clicks) and averaged 267.8,
pretty slow I guess.
21
S.Smith
// Jun 19, 2009
Fun game. Like some of the suggestions, peripheral vision and a prepared pressing finger helped me get 187 once. I average just above 200 though.
I hope I’m faster when the game punches me.
22
-e0lic!0us-
// Jul 22, 2009
i got 1 lucky guess by getting 29 =)
really lucky guess rxn time.
23
Brandon
// Aug 28, 2009
139.2 after 10 trials..I’ve found the best way to increase reaction time is by playing online first person shooter games(esp. counter-strike), no joke.
screenshot of rt- https://webspace.utexas.edu/bhs56/rt.jpg
24
indra
// Sep 4, 2009
I got a 172.8ms
kinda disappointed, but i guess ill work harder at it.
25
Mentalist
// Sep 27, 2009
best was 44(no idea how i got it) average was 230.6
26
Brett
// Nov 1, 2009
I played three rounds. two of the three around 90 to 100 my third one was 50 ms
27
Peter
// Nov 2, 2009
http://yfrog.com/j582037490j IN YOUR FACE! xD
28
reactiq
// Jan 14, 2010
Really interesting, I decided that I liked the idea of having different types of reaction timing challenges that I put up my own site. This site will the use stats (like color differences) to determine which colors people react to the best. The data will probably take about two months to generate.
www . reactiq . com
29
SNIGHT
// Feb 8, 2010
191.0 average on 1st go
30
SNIGHT
// Feb 8, 2010
184 average on 2nd go
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