Speed & reaction · Audio
Audio Reaction Time Test
React the instant you hear the tone. Headphones recommended.
Wait for the panel to turn green, then click or press space as fast as you can.
Click or press space to start
What this measures
Sound reaches the brain through a shorter processing chain than light, so auditory reaction times run roughly 30 to 60 ms faster than visual ones for the same person. That is why sprint races start with a pistol rather than a light, and why an athlete who moves within 100 ms of the gun is ruled to have false-started: they cannot have heard it and reacted.
Use headphones if you can. Bluetooth audio adds anywhere from 30 to 200 ms of latency depending on the codec, which will swamp the effect you are trying to measure; wired headphones or laptop speakers give a much cleaner result.
Compare your score here against your visual score on the main test. The gap between them is your own auditory advantage, and it is usually larger than people expect.
What is a good reaction time score
| Band | Score | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1% | ≤ 150 ms | 99th |
| Top 5% | ≤ 175 ms | 95th |
| Top 15% | ≤ 200 ms | 85th |
| Top 30% | ≤ 225 ms | 70th |
| Median | ≤ 273 ms | 50th |
| Bottom 25% | ≤ 320 ms | 25th |
| Bottom 10% | ≤ 400 ms | 10th |
Bands anchored on Human Benchmark’s published median of 273 ms across more than 81 million recorded clicks.
Full reaction time statistics, by age and device →
Questions
Why is audio reaction faster than visual?
Sound is transduced by the ear and reaches the auditory cortex through fewer processing stages than vision needs. For the same person the difference is typically 30 to 60 ms.
Do Bluetooth headphones affect the result?
Badly. Bluetooth adds 30 to 200 ms of latency depending on the codec, which is larger than the effect being measured. Use wired headphones or speakers.
What is a good reaction time?
The median adult scores around 273 ms on a mouse. Under 200 ms puts you in the top 15%, under 175 ms in the top 5%, and under 150 ms in the top 1%. Controlled measurements bottom out near 100 ms for a visual signal, so a score well below that is a lucky guess that happened to land rather than a reaction.
Why is my reaction time slower here than on other sites?
Most sites start their clock when their JavaScript changes the colour. The browser does not show that change until the next frame is painted, one to two frames later. We start the clock at the painted frame, which is honest and typically reads 8 to 30 ms slower than sites that do not.
Does my monitor affect the result?
Yes, substantially. Refresh rate adds up to half a frame of quantisation, and display processing adds more — some televisions add over 100 ms in their default picture mode. Wireless mice and keyboards add a few milliseconds on top. We show the uncertainty we can measure so you know how much of your number is you.
Is keyboard or mouse faster?
For most people the two are within a few milliseconds, but they are not identical: a key press registers on the way down while a mouse click registers on the button press, and wireless polling differs between devices. Because of that we rank keyboard scores against other keyboard scores.
What happens if I click too early?
The round is void and you repeat it. We do not score a false start as a slow round: adding a punishment number to your five rounds would corrupt your median and the shared statistics along with it.
Try next
Results are stored in your browser only. Read how we measure if you want the details of the timing, or go back to the standard reaction time.