How the reaction time test works
- Press Play, or hit Space. The arena dims and you wait.
- After a random pause, a green target lights up somewhere in the arena. Tap or click it as fast as you can.
- Jump the gun and tap before it appears, and that round starts again. The same happens if you take longer than two seconds.
- Five hits later you get your average in milliseconds, plus the animal that matches it. Log in if you want the score on the leaderboard.
What is a good reaction time?
Most adults land somewhere between 200 and 300 milliseconds on a test like this. Your device adds a little on top, since the screen has to draw the target and the mouse or touchscreen has to report your tap, so online scores usually cluster around 250 to 280 ms. Anything under 200 is genuinely quick. The table below shows where each score lands.
| Average (ms) | Your reflex animal |
|---|---|
| Under 180 | Falcon: The fastest animal on Earth, and so are you. Pro-gamer reflexes. |
| 180–214 | Cobra: Strike speed. Faster than almost everyone you know. |
| 215–249 | Fox: Quick and sharp. Comfortably above average. |
| 250–289 | Cat: Solid reflexes, right on the human average. |
| 290–349 | Dog: Good effort, slightly slow paws. |
| 350–449 | Panda: Chill vibes, slow taps. |
| 450+ | Sloth: Were you even looking? |
How to get a better score
Sleep helps more than anything else. Being tired slows you down in ways you won't notice yourself, while a cup of coffee can sharpen you up a little. Play a couple of warm-up games too, because almost everyone's first attempt is their slowest.
Your setup matters more than you'd think. A wired mouse and a high refresh rate screen can shave real milliseconds off every round, and phones tend to be a touch slower than computers. And don't try to guess the timing. The wait is random, and anything under 100 ms counts as a false start because no human can genuinely react that fast.
Reaction time questions
What does reaction time mean?
It's the gap between something happening and you responding to it. Here, the clock starts on the exact frame the target appears and stops when your tap or click lands on it. Reaction time is measured in milliseconds (ms), and a millisecond is a thousandth of a second, so 250 ms is a quarter of a second.
Is a lower reaction time better?
Yes. The lower the number of milliseconds, the faster the reaction: 200 ms beats 300 ms. That's why the leaderboard puts the smallest average at the top. Whenever you see reaction times written in milliseconds, lower and faster mean the same thing.
What is the average reaction time by age?
Simple reactions like this one are quickest from the late teens to the mid-twenties, then hold remarkably steady until around 50, after which they slow down and become less consistent. Studies disagree on the exact figures, and every device adds its own delay, so your own best score is a fairer yardstick than any chart. The research is summed up in average reaction time by age.
Why is my score slower on a phone?
A touchscreen and a phone display each add a little delay between the target appearing and your tap being recorded, and together that can add tens of milliseconds that have nothing to do with your reflexes. Compare scores on the same device. How online reaction time tests work explains where the time goes.
Why does reaction time matter in sport?
Fast sports leave very little time to respond. A sprinter is charged with a false start for reacting in under a tenth of a second, a netball player has three seconds to pass or shoot, and a fast bowler's delivery reaches the batter in about half a second. Speed alone isn't enough, though: experts win by reading what's about to happen. See reaction time in sport and reaction time in cricket, or test your batting timing in Last Over Hero.
Why is there no sound before the target?
Because people react a few tens of milliseconds faster to sounds than to things they see. A beep before the target would turn this into a different test and make scores impossible to compare. The test stays silent until you've hit the target; the short tone you hear afterwards is only feedback, higher the quicker you were, and M turns it off.
Learn more
- Average Reaction Time by Age: What the Research Shows
- What Affects Reaction Time? 8 Factors That Matter
- How Online Reaction Time Tests Work
- Reaction Time and Driving: Why 250 ms Becomes 1.5 s
- Simple vs Choice Reaction Time, and Hick's Law
- Do Video Games Improve Reaction Time?
- Reaction Time in Sport: Why Reflexes Aren't Enough
- How Batters Hit a 150 km/h Ball: Reaction Time in Cricket
- Reaction Time vs Reflexes: What's the Difference?
- Can You Train Your Reaction Time? A Two-Week Plan