Choice Reaction Time Test
Four shapes, four keys - press the one that matches.
Press the key with the same shape.
Score = median time of the ones you get right. Lower is better.
- One of four shapes appears in the middle.
- Press the key wearing it - -> key 3.
- Not before it shows, and within 1.5 seconds.
A round takes about 45 seconds. Slower just takes longer - no rush.
On a desktop keyboard, 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 work too.How to read your score
| Score | What it means |
|---|---|
| Under 380 ms | A median under 380 milliseconds over 20 four-choice trials is fast for this task, where every answer has to identify one of four shapes and then find one of four keys. Faster is better, and no reference sample stands behind this band, so it does not say how many people you outscored. Check your accuracy beside it: with four keys, answers that outrun the decision show up as wrong keys rather than as a faster time, so a quick median next to several wrong keys is a rushed round rather than a good one. |
| 380 to 470 ms | A median of 380 to 470 milliseconds over 20 four-choice trials is a brisk result on this shape-matching task, and lower is better. No reference sample stands behind this band either, so it describes the round rather than your rank. The most useful number to put beside it is your own simple reaction time on the same device: the gap between the two is what the extra decision cost you on this round, and that gap is steadier than either figure on its own. |
| 470 to 600 ms | A median of 470 to 600 milliseconds over 20 four-choice trials is the middle band of the five this site defines for its four-shape, four-key task, and it is a normal place for a first careful round to land. Read it two ways: against your accuracy, which tells you whether the time went into deciding or into pressing, and against your own earlier rounds on the same device. Published four-choice figures use different keys, screens and input devices, so they are not comparable with this number, and no reference sample has been collected here to say how common it is. |
| 600 to 800 ms | A median of 600 to 800 milliseconds over 20 four-choice trials usually means time is going into finding the key rather than into recognising the shape, which is common on a first round. Read it against your accuracy: high accuracy with a slow median points at the keys, so the thing to practise is the two-by-two layout, while a slow median with several wrong keys points at the shapes themselves. No reference sample stands behind this band. |
| 800 ms or more | A median of 800 milliseconds or more over 20 four-choice trials is approaching the 1.5-second limit this test allows for a single trial, so some trials in that round may also have run out of time. No reference sample stands behind this band, and a slow round says nothing about you beyond that round. If it was your first round on this key layout, the number still has learning the layout inside it - run a second round once the four shapes feel familiar and read the two against each other. |
These five bands are descriptive magnitude ranges for this site's own four-shape, four-key version of the test, and faster is better. They are not population norms, not percentiles and not pass marks, and they do not say how many people you outscored. When a single result lands near the edge of a band, another round can fall into the neighbouring one. The narrowest band is only 90 ms wide, which is the same order as how much a single round of twenty trials can move on its own, so read a run of your own rounds rather than one - keeping the device and the input method the same.
How to play
- Learn the four shape keys: Four keys sit along the bottom in a two-by-two grid, always in the same order: circle, square, triangle, cross, numbered 1 to 4. Each key wears its own shape, so there is nothing to memorise - the mapping stays on screen. The keys never move, within a round or between rounds.
- Answer the four practice trials: Four unscored practice trials come first, one for each shape. They give you a tick or a cross on the key you pressed, and nothing they produce reaches your records. The scored block starts only when you press Continue.
- Wait for the shape, then press the matching key: A small cross marks the middle of the panel for somewhere between 0.75 and 1.55 seconds, then a solid shape replaces it in the same spot. Press the key wearing that shape. On a desktop keyboard the number keys 1 to 4 do the same thing, but a round only counts one input method - whichever you use first.
- Answer between 0.2 and 1.5 seconds: A press before the shape appears, or within 200 milliseconds of it, is recorded as a false start rather than an answer. No answer within 1.5 seconds ends that trial. Either way the trial is used up and is not run again.
- Read your median and the three figures beside it: The score is your median time on the scored trials you answered correctly - sort those times and take the middle one - so lower is better. Beside it are your accuracy, your single fastest trial and how many of the 20 trials were usable. Below that, if you have taken the simple reaction test on this device, is the gap between your two numbers.
What this measures
This is a non-standardised adaptation, and the result cannot be exchanged with a clinical or standardised scale. One of four solid shapes - circle, square, triangle, cross - appears in the middle of the panel, and your job is to press the key that wears the same shape. The shapes are told apart by outline only, never by colour, and the four keys carry those same outlines from the ready screen onwards, so the mapping is on screen the whole time.
This is a four-choice reaction, not a simple one. A simple reaction test asks only whether something appeared; here you also have to work out which of four things it was and which of four keys answers it, and that extra step is what the test measures. The gap between the two is usually the more interesting number, which is why the result card shows it when you have both.
A round is 4 unscored practice trials and 20 scored ones. Each of the four shapes comes up exactly five times in the scored block, and all four are drawn to the same size, so no round can be made easier or harder by the draw. Which shape comes up when is decided once when the round starts, and a round opened from a shared link always replays that same order.
A trial runs like this: a small cross marks where the shape will appear, for somewhere between 0.75 and 1.55 seconds, then the shape replaces it in the same spot. That wait is a different length every trial, so there is no beat to count along with - watch the cross and wait for the shape. The shape stays until you answer or until 1.5 seconds have passed; there is no mask and nothing is hidden from you.
A press during the cross, or faster than 200 milliseconds after the shape, is a false start: a four-way shape choice cannot be decided that fast, so such a press is a guess that was already on its way. It is recorded, the trial is used up, and it is not run again.
The main score is the median of your correct scored trials - the middle value once those times are sorted. A median rather than an average, because one slip should not move a result taken from twenty trials. Nothing is dropped before the median is taken, so an unusually slow trial still sits in the row of times it is taken from.
A round gives no score at all unless at least 16 of the 20 scored trials were answered correctly on a clock the page can vouch for. False starts, trials that ran out of time, wrong keys and moments when the device stalled all come out of that same allowance of four. With four keys, pressing at random is right about a quarter of the time, so guessing cannot buy you a fast median - it costs you the round instead.
Two mistakes account for most of a first round. One is answering before you have really identified the shape, which shows up as a wrong key rather than as a fast time. The other is knowing the answer and then hunting along the bottom for the key, which costs you time rather than accuracy. Your median and your accuracy are reported separately, so you can tell which is happening to you: wrong keys point at the shapes, a slow median on an accurate round points at the keys.
Read a run of rounds rather than one. A median taken from twenty trials moves on its own between rounds, by about the width of the narrowest band on this page, so one faster round is not yet an improvement. Keep the same device and the same input method, run several rounds across a few days, and compare that group with an earlier one. Your first round on a new key layout is usually your slowest, because it still has learning the layout inside it.
The four practice trials run one per shape and tell you, on the key you pressed, whether you were right. The scored block stops telling you: once every trial is being timed, a verdict is one more thing to react to. So from the moment scoring starts, the only thing that appears in the panel is the next shape.
How long a round takes is mostly up to you. A typical round is about 45 seconds from the first practice trial to your score, because the waits are fixed by the test and the answering is not. Answering slowly makes a round longer, and nothing on this page hurries you: there is no countdown between trials, and the screen that hands over from practice to scoring waits for you to press it.
Whichever input method you use on your first answer - touch, mouse or keyboard - is what the whole round is recorded under, and presses from anything else are dropped with a line telling you why. Times from a touchscreen and times from a keyboard are two different measurements, and a round that mixed them would be neither.
Stay on this page until the round ends. Moving to another tab or window, refreshing or stopping ends the round without saving anything, and there is no resume: half a round of reaction times is not a measurement that can be finished later. If the device stalls long enough to spoil the timing, the round is ended for the same reason.
Your own history is kept per input method, so a personal best set on a keyboard is not beaten by a slower touchscreen round and the two are never compared. Nothing about the round leaves your browser: what is saved is a handful of milliseconds, the input method and how many trials were usable.
FAQ
What is a choice reaction time test?
It is a reaction test where you first have to work out which of several signals appeared before you can answer. On this page one of four shapes appears and you press the key wearing that shape, so every answer carries an identification and a choice on top of the reaction itself. The paradigm is public and dates back to Donders in the 1860s; this four-shape adaptation, its timings and its band table are the site's own.
What is a good choice reaction time?
On this test, a median under about 470 milliseconds is a brisk result for a four-choice shape task, and faster is better. What it cannot tell you is where you sit among other people, because there is no reference sample behind it. Read the five bands against your own simple reaction time and then compare several of your own rounds on the same device.
How many milliseconds is a normal choice reaction time?
There is no single normal figure, and this test publishes no average because it has no reference sample to draw one from. For scale, four-choice tasks generally land a few hundred milliseconds behind the same person's simple reaction, and the gap grows with the number of alternatives - the relationship Hick and Hyman described in the 1950s. Published laboratory figures use different keys and different screens, so they should not be read against this page's numbers.
What is the difference between simple and choice reaction time?
A simple reaction has one signal and one response: you press as soon as anything appears. A choice reaction has several signals mapped to several responses, so before pressing you have to identify which one appeared and which key answers it. That identification and selection is the whole difference, and it is why choice times are longer. If you have taken the simple reaction test on this device with the same input method, the result card shows the gap between your two numbers as a plain millisecond figure.
Why does choice reaction time slow down with more choices?
Because each extra alternative adds to the work of deciding, not to the work of moving. Hick's law describes the usual shape of it: response time rises roughly with the logarithm of the number of alternatives, so going from one choice to four costs more than going from four to five would. On this page that cost is visible directly - four shapes, four keys, and a median that sits noticeably behind a simple reaction measured on the same finger.
What does a choice reaction time test measure?
It measures how quickly you can identify which of several signals appeared and produce the response mapped to it. On this page that is one of four shapes and one of four keys, on your device and with your input method, reported as your median time over the correct scored trials. That is one narrow thing: it is not a general speed score, not an attention score and not a diagnostic instrument.
Is choice reaction time the same as discrimination reaction time?
They are close but not the same. Discrimination reaction time usually means you have to tell the signals apart but answer in only one way - press for the target and hold still for everything else. A choice reaction gives every signal its own response, so you also have to select which answer belongs to what you just saw. This page is a four-choice task: four shapes, four keys, one key per shape.
How long does a choice reaction time test take?
A typical round is about 45 seconds, counting the four practice trials and the twenty scored ones. The fixed part is the waiting - each trial holds a cross for 0.75 to 1.55 seconds before the shape appears - and the variable part is you. Answering slowly makes a round longer, and the screen between practice and scoring is not timed at all, so you can take as long as you like there.
How do you improve choice reaction time?
Learn the layout first: most of the time lost in an early round goes into hunting for the right key, not into recognising the shape. Watch the cross rather than the keys, answer as soon as you have the shape, and let a wrong one go rather than carrying it into the next trial. Keep the device and the input method the same between rounds and read a run of rounds rather than one. Practice makes people faster at this task; read a falling time as a skill at this task rather than as a change in anything broader, because the evidence for that kind of transfer is weak (Simons et al., 2016).
Why did my choice reaction round give no score?
A round needs at least 16 of its 20 scored trials answered correctly on a clock the page can vouch for, and reports nothing when it does not. False starts, trials that ran out of time, wrong keys and moments when the device stalled all come out of that same allowance of four, and the screen lists which of them happened. The honest answer in that case is no number, so the round is offered again instead.
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Last updated: 2026-09-30 · Scores stay on this device