How the sound reaction test works
Turn your sound on, then click the pad. It asks you to listen, and nothing on the screen changes after that. After a random pause a short beep plays. Click, tap or press the spacebar the moment you hear it. Five attempts, and the score is their average in milliseconds.
Because the screen gives no hint, you can take this test with your eyes closed. If no response arrives within four seconds of the beep, the attempt is void and the page asks whether your sound is on.
Sound is usually faster than sight
Laboratory studies of young adults commonly report reaction times of about 160 ms to a sound and about 190 ms to a light. Hearing gets its signal to the brain sooner than vision does. Take this test and the visual reaction test on the same device and you will probably see the same gap in your own numbers.
Your audio equipment matters more than your screen
- Bluetooth headphones and speakers add a long delay, often more than a tenth of a second, because the sound is compressed, sent by radio and decoded before you hear it. That delay is added straight onto your result. Use wired headphones or the built-in speakers.
- Distance counts. Sound takes about 3 ms to travel each metre, so sitting two metres from a speaker costs about 6 ms.
- The browser and sound card need a short moment to start playing. It is usually small, but it means the beep reaches you slightly after the clock has started.
All of these make the number larger, never smaller. As with every test here, compare your results with your own earlier results on the same setup.
Where a sound start is used
Sprint races start on a gun, and World Athletics rules treat a reaction within 0.100 seconds of it as a false start, on the basis that nobody can respond to a sound faster than that. This test applies the same limit: an attempt under 100 ms is called a guess and does not count.