Measured in milliseconds · lower is better
Reaction Test
One clock, more than one kind of signal. React to what you see, or to what you hear.
Before you start
The median on mouse is 273 ms. Run the test and we will place you against it.
Compared against
Audio mode is only as fast as your output path. Wired output or speakers give a truer number than Bluetooth.
The other device classes
Trackpad
Touchscreen
Curve is a fitted baseline plus 0 first attempts recorded here. The baseline is a curve, not a sample: no part of it is a real person. Baseline fitted from Human Benchmark's published reaction time statistics (n=81,000,000) (source). That figure pools every input device into one number. Splitting it by mouse, trackpad and touchscreen is our extrapolation, not theirs. Per-device offsets are extrapolated, not measured. The baseline is dropped once a device class holds 5,000 real first attempts. See the full distribution.
Understanding your score
| Band | ms | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Exceptional | 150 and below | Trained or anticipating. |
| Very fast | 151 to 170 | Top few percent on a mouse. |
| Fast | 171 to 190 | Quicker than most people. |
| Above average | 191 to 220 | A good result on any setup. |
| Average | 221 to 260 | Where most first results land. |
| Below average | 261 to 320 | Tired, distracted, or on a trackpad. |
| Slow | 321 and above | Usually setup or attention. |
Three stimulus types, three different numbers
Visual is the default and the one every comparison uses. A block of colour changes and you respond. It is the slowest of the three for most people because the visual pathway is not the fastest route into the motor system.
Audio typically comes back 20 to 40 milliseconds faster than visual for the same person. Sound reaches the auditory cortex more directly than light reaches the visual cortex, and the difference shows up consistently. If your audio result is not faster than your visual result, check your output latency: Bluetooth headphones alone can add 150 milliseconds.
F1 mode reproduces the Formula 1 start sequence. Five lights come on one at a time, then all five go out at a random interval, and you respond to the lights going out. It is harder than it looks: the regular rhythm of the lights invites you to anticipate the release, and anticipation is exactly what the random hold punishes.
What the number is made of
A reaction time measured in a browser is never purely biological. It is your visual or auditory pathway, plus your decision, plus your motor response, plus everything the machine adds on the way in and on the way out.
The machine’s share is larger than most people assume. A 60Hz monitor holds a finished frame for up to 16.7 milliseconds before showing it, and averages half of that. A wireless mouse adds a few milliseconds on the return trip. The browser rounds its timestamps to protect against timing attacks. Together these routinely account for 30 to 50 milliseconds.
None of that is a reason to distrust the number. It is a reason to compare it only against numbers gathered the same way, which is what the percentile on this page does and what a raw global average cannot.
Why five trials and a median
One trial is close to worthless. Within a single session, an untrained person’s fastest and slowest responses commonly differ by 80 milliseconds or more, and there is no way to know from a single click which end of that range you happened to land on.
Averaging five is better but still fragile, because one badly mistimed trial drags the mean a long way. The median of five ignores a single bad trial entirely while still requiring you to be consistently fast to score well. That is the property worth having.
If you want to compare sessions honestly, run the full five each time. Comparing today’s best single trial against last week’s median is comparing two different measurements.
Reading your spread
Alongside your median, this test reports how far apart your five trials were. That spread is often more informative than the median itself.
A tight spread means you were attending consistently. A wide spread, especially one caused by one or two very slow trials, is the classic signature of sleep loss: attention lapses briefly and the response arrives late. It shows up in the spread long before it shows up in the median.
Reading the number
Only the visual mode feeds the percentile, because mixing stimulus types would blur the distribution into something meaningless. Audio and F1 results are shown against your own visual baseline instead, which is the comparison that actually tells you something.
A false start voids the trial rather than scoring it. There is no useful number to record when the response began before the stimulus did.
Questions
- Why is my audio reaction faster than my visual reaction?
- Because it usually is, for everyone. Auditory signals reach the brain along a shorter path than visual ones, and the gap is typically 20 to 40 milliseconds. It is a real physiological difference, not a quirk of the test.
- What is a good F1 reaction time?
- Formula 1 drivers are generally in the 200 to 300 millisecond range from lights out, and anything under 200 is exceptional under real starting conditions. Sitting at a desk with no clutch to release, expect your F1 numbers to be close to your normal visual result.
- How much does my monitor affect the result?
- Meaningfully. A 60Hz display adds about 8 milliseconds on average purely from waiting for the next frame, a 144Hz display about 3.5, and a 240Hz display about 2. That is why comparing across setups tells you more about the hardware than about the person.
- Should I use my best trial or my median?
- Your median. A best trial rewards luck and anticipation, and it is not repeatable. The median of five is what you can actually do, and it is the number this page ranks.
- Why did my trial not count?
- You responded before the stimulus. The hold is randomised specifically to make anticipation unprofitable, so an early response voids the trial rather than recording a very fast time.