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Reaction time is perhaps the most physiological, culture fair measure of intelligence. If your reaction time is slow, it means your brain is probably slow, and you’re deficient in a major component of intelligence. Of course reaction time is only moderately g loaded, so don’t be too depressed if you take this test and find out your reaction time is way slower than you thought. The great thing about this test is that it averages your 5 scores for you. Maybe practice for about five minutes to make sure you’re used to the test and know how it works, and then once you feel comfortable, do an official five trials and consider the average the computer calculates, your official average reaction time.
Brain Size 
If you can dominate online FPS game like `MEDAL OF HONOR’, ‘CALL OF DUTY, “CONTER STRIKE” ect, your reaction time can not be slow. Also you can not be too dumb since it also involving problem solving to outsmart your opponents.
im sumpreme at csgo and i have a slow reaction time 😦
you should refine the votes, as most people are around 0.2 and 0.3 with a mean about 0.25
http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime
and we can see if the average of brainsize readers the same as larger population…
This simple reaction time can not be good measurement of intelligence. SAT, GRE, ect are way better predictors than this. Like I said before, this is like to use simple caculation to measure powers difference between calculators vs sophisticated computers. Ceiling effect limits the screening power.
I agree. but also SAT and GRE are not that accurate, as they are timed, as far as I know. High range Iq tests still are the best estimate of individual potential, without stress, or finger speed or computer power…The geniuses had plenty of time to contemplate about their problems, no need to rush.
I don’t know why but i checked my reaction time and i got 194ms average on human benchmark nearly 5 times then later on it decreased significantly like 30ms
I got 190 ms later on i felt weaker in my brain idk why but at my best at that time i got like near 205
additionally, my average is around 225ms to 260 ms depending on the computer/browser…this is average reaction time for that site users…
and these results are nowhere close to my high range iq test scores (which are way higher)
so reaction time vs Iq (by charlton) is very overrated , I believe. of course only thinking of myself is biased, but this is also combined with life experiences…
Alcoholicwisdom, reaction time only moderately correlates with IQ so we should expect high IQ people like you to regress precipitously to the mean just as you might for other crude biological IQ proxies like head size. Simple RT might be overrated as a measure of individual IQ, but as a measure of long term dysgenic trends in the population as a whole, it has a lot of unique properties
This is slower for me on tablet/smartphone, for the sole reason that making the motion of touching the screen is slower than using a mouse to click.
[user name edited by pumpkinperson, sept 26, 2014]
Scott I just tried it on my iPhone & my reaction time literally doubled. Doing it on an iPhone is way harder. Maybe because the button is so small? Perhaps the reaction time test alcoholicwisdom linked to is less sensitive to the device used.
That’s the one I tried, and I still had a phenomenally higher reaction time with a mouse. I guess it’s because holding a tablet in the hand while tapping the screen is inherently slower than making a quick click with the mouse while the cursor is already in place and some practice is done.
[user name edited by pumpkinperson, sept 26, 2014]
Are these times adjusted for age cohort?
CORRECTION: *Should* they be adjusted for age cohort?
I suspect reaction time slows precipitously with age
@Pp – I would suggest that a fast reaction time is very likely to be indicative of high intelligence – but a slower reaction time could have several possible causes as well as lower intelligence (sensorimotor defects, illness of various types, drug impairments, poor concentration) – RT is, after all, a performance measure.
Also that a mean average of multiple trials is not the best measure – because the reason for slower times is non-random. I’d be inclined to focus on best performance rather than average – for example use a mean or median of the three fastest times from a larger number of trials – or something like that.
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/how-should-we-measure-general.html
BTW and off topic – I’d be interested to hear your thoughts – a list maybe – on the disadvantages of high intelligence. The piece I wrote for Mensa magazine on that topic is my most popular blog post ever.
0,72 with smartphone.
Bruce,
I see your point about bad reaction times being less indicative of IQ then best reaction time & as I’ve mentioned, a study by a Promethean found that one’s best performance on chronometric tests (after weeks of practice) correlated far better with SAT scores than one’s initial performance (many brilliant people were actually terrible initially)
On the other hand, according to Jensen, one’s worst reaction time is more indicative of IQ than one’s best. Jensen notes that that mentally challenged people (i.e. below IQ 70) and gifted people (above IQ 130) hardly differ in their best reaction time, but differ enormously in their worst reaction time.
I guess a key point is reaction time variability is more negatively correlated with IQ than reaction time itself.
But at the same time, as you imply, if people get variable reaction times because of sensori-motor defects, illness, drugs or poor concentration, it’s meaningless.
So probably the best indicator is the average speed & variability of one’s reaction time within one’s best day, & not one’s overall average speed & variability across many days, which can vary enormously for non-cognitive reasons.
As for disadvantages of high IQ…that almost sounds oxymoronic because intelligence can be defined as the ability to adapt & problem solve, but at the extremes it must create problems in its own right. I would guess such problems would be social isolation, extreme boredom with routine tasks making it hard to do well in school, work & business, disinterest in raising one’s children, lack of ambition or work ethic because everything always came so easy, lack of focus because you have too many interests.
Possible physical problems like an overly big head (and I would imagine an oversized brain might increase the risk of a stroke or aneurysm since the more brain mass one has, the greater the odds of some part breaking), an extreme lack of body mass, extreme myopia, asthma, left-handedness (common in both extremely high & extremely low IQ people)
Reaction time isn’t just a matter of how quick the brain is, but also how quickly the signal to the finger is relayed.
The longer the path of the optic nerve, the larger the head, …
the longer the arms, the taller the person … these correlate with IQ but would correlate negatively with reaction time as measured by this test.
All mine were in the .2 to .3 range. Might get a little under .2 with practice. I got .128 on a false start, so I’m thinking it’s impossible to get that any other way.
Still the faster starter in the history of sprinting is Armin Hary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Hary
If Hary had run the 60 m indoors on a modern track surface with modern spikes I wonder if he’d still have the world record.
And regarding race and sprinting ability, the final of the 1960 Olympics 100 m is interesting. 6 finalists rather than the usual 8. 3 whites and 3 blacks and gold silver and bronze went to…the whites! http://speedendurance.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/armin-hary-100-meters-1960-olympics-photo-finish-300.jpg
Reaction time isn’t just a matter of how quick the brain is, but also how quickly the signal to the finger is relayed.
Correct. That’s why complex reaction time is a better measure of IQ than simple reaction time, since the greater cognitive demand causes mental speed to contribute more to one’s RT than motor speed.
On that note I actually saw the race where Donovan Bailey set the world record in the 50 m.
He had obviously “caught a flyer” but the blocks ruled his start fair.
And, btw, Bailey’s an example of a black athlete who likely has an IQ > 115. He had been quite successful before he took up sprinting.
Another Jamaican Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson had a very fast reaction time legitimately yet was, like Joe Louis, considered “slow” by his friends in Jamaica, or so I’ve heard.
Despite the ‘roids Jonhson should be admired for showing how much strength can do to improve sprinting ability. If any modern sprinter is on ‘roids he certainly doesn’t need to be as none of them is freakishly muscular.
tried to find a vid for Bailey’s record 50 m but couldn’t.
An again regarding race and sprinting ability…
If LeMaitre could put on only a little muscle he’d beat Bolt.
Really!
Try an audio-reaction time test as well. Modern monitors introduce a perceptible delay over the old CRTs.
I used a wireless mouse.
The reaction time is tres tres UN-reliable. But the average over a lot of tests should be reliable.
But even then the correlation is likely an example of how spearman’s rho is misapplied to distributions which aren’t bivariate normal.
I remember wrestling when I was 12. There was a big special ed guy a year ahead of me and a Native American in my grade. Wrestling with them the reaction time was clear. They weren’t just slow metaphorically.
Read somewhere that faster reaction times are a better predictor of long life than IQ.
Monkey ladder. Monkeys are better in sequential number memorization than us, but they aren’t smarter because this result. Starting of Assumption that intelligence is complex because is cognitivelly diverse turn the probabillity to find or create a cognitive test able to capture the totality or at least the essence of intelligence is near to impossible. To find the essence of intelligence, only by practicise and not by theory or idealization as iq. Iq is part of intelligence and not their concept. Essence of intelligence is the ability to capture harmonic and disharmonic patterns based on universal criteria about what’s completely or objectively wrong or right for all contextualities. Education based on contextualized intelligence.
On http://cognitivefun.net/test/16 I can hit ~150ms, which is obviously significantly better than ~290ms. Maybe there is a bug in the audio test, but modern LEDs contribute a 60-70ms delay in reaction time.
Make that LCDs, not LEDs..
Thanks for the link…doesn’t seem to work on my iPad though
me too, closing eyes helps.
My reaction time is .59_.61msec on tablet screen.is it abnormal for me.?my age is 29years.
It is a bit simplistic. Kinisthetic reaction time is more of an pysiological automated body response, not really much for IQ
I found this site a bit more closer to what this site is trying to gauge but with your problem solving time.
http://www.logic-puzzles.org/
You should take part in a contest for the most effective blogs on the web. I’ll recommend this site!
I’m nearly 66. I have best Human benchmark reaction averages of 194,208,213, and 215. With Cooijman’s Slobrain my best RTSD are 12.78,13.7,14.16 and 16.04 ms.