Reaction Time Test

A rather crude reaction time test and some game musings.

Spells and skills in Guild Wars can be interrupted by utilizing a whole range of interrupt attacks, knockdowns and counterspells. Based on my playing I would rate my "simple" reaction time to be 200 miliseconds (or 0.2 seconds). Decided to read up a bit more about it. (I scored 183ms consistently on the crude simple reaction test above)

*skip to the end if you wish : what follows is some technical data which I find interesting*

There are 3 types of reaction times : Simple, Recognition, and Choice : Simple Reaction is where there is one stimuli and one response. Recognition Reaction is where you are only supposed to respond to one type of stimuli, and discard the rest. Choice Reaction is where different stimuli demand different responses.

Accepted figures for mean reaction times for college age individuals is around 190ms for light stimuli and 160ms for sound stimuli. (Brebner and Welford 1980). Auditory stimulus takes roughly 10ms to reach the brain compared to roughly 30ms for visual. (Marshall et al. 1943). These figures are for simple reaction : for recognition reaction the figure is higher, around 360ms (Laming 1968) and for choice recognition reaction time increases with number of possible responses.

Jerng says this proves that sound travels faster than light

State of Arousal : state of attention, concentration or tension - reaction time is fastest with an intermediate level of arousal, deteriorating when subject is too relaxed or tense (Welford 1980). makes sense - we play best when our mind is finely balanced and relaxed, neither too tense nor too apathetic.

Age : Reaction time peaks at the late 20s and then declines, with sharp deterioration after a person reaches his 70s. (Rose et al. 2002).

Gender : at all age groups males have faster reaction time than females and disadvantage not reduced by practice (Noble et al. 1964) this disadvantage is roughly 20ms. under gradual dehydration females had lengthened choice reaction time but males have shortened choice reaction time (Szinnai et al. 2005)

Fatigue : reaction time is slower when subject is fatigued but this only applies to mental fatigue and muscular fatigue has no effects on reaction time (Kroll 1973)

Fasting : three days without food does not affect reaction time (Gutierrez et al. 2001)

Alcohol Impairment : subjects taking an impairing dose of alcohol reacted faster when they were warned that this would slow their reaction time while unwarned subjects suffered more decreased reaction times. subjects who were given nonalcoholic beverages and then falsely warned about alcohol impairment also reacted faster than unwarned subjects who drank the same beverage (Fillmore and Blackburn 2002)

Intelligence : negligable effect (Deary et al. 2001)

*ugh much random data*

Uh.. ok... I guess I'm the only guy who found this interesting =p In any case, it's kind of interesting how certain games are pushing the limits of what humans can do with our bodies. Reaction times are limited by not how fast or how much practice we have, but limited solely by the hardware our bodies have.

Just like my illustration of a defense / attack scenario in foosball, where a defenders reaction time of 0.3 seconds at best is always insufficient to defeat the attackers attack time of 0.2 seconds because the defender has to factor in the recognition time and then move to block.