Typical figures by age band
These are the medians this site compares your result against. They come from a model anchored to published adult averages for simple visual reaction time, not from the people who have used this site, and they describe a band rather than an individual.
| Age band | Median | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Under 18 | 265 ms | Near peak, but still developing consistency |
| 18 to 24 | 262 ms | The fastest band |
| 25 to 34 | 273 ms | The reference band most averages quote |
| 35 to 44 | 288 ms | A small, barely noticeable slowing |
| 45 to 54 | 306 ms | Still comfortably inside the normal range |
| 55 to 64 | 328 ms | The decline becomes measurable in daily tasks |
| 65 and over | 358 ms | Wider spread matters more than the median |
The curve rises early and falls slowly
Reaction time improves sharply through childhood as the nervous system matures and myelination completes, reaching adult speed in the mid to late teens. It sits near its fastest through the early twenties. From there it slows gradually and fairly linearly — the widely cited figure is around one millisecond per year through adult life, which is small enough that most people never notice it happening.
What changes more than the median is the spread. Older adults show more variability between trials: the fast trials stay respectably fast, but the slow ones get slower and more frequent. In practical terms the occasional very slow response matters more than the average, because that is the one that arrives when it was needed.
A 60-year-old who sleeps well and pays attention will out-react a distracted 25-year-old on a phone most days of the week.
Why children often score badly on this test
Young children have genuinely slower reaction times, but browser tests exaggerate the gap. A test like this one also measures sustained attention across five trials, comfort with the device, and understanding of the instructions. All three are still developing. A ten-year-old scoring 400 ms has not necessarily got a slow nervous system; they may simply have looked away during trial three.
What actually slows down with age
- Nerve conduction speed decreases modestly as myelin changes.
- Central processing takes longer, which shows up much more in choice reaction than in simple reaction.
- Motor output slows, particularly the time from the muscle being told to move to the movement happening.
- Visual contrast sensitivity drops, so the signal takes slightly longer to register clearly.
- Variability increases — the biggest practical change of the five.
What helps at any age
The evidence for keeping reaction time healthy points at general fitness rather than at reaction drills. Regular aerobic exercise is associated with better reaction performance across age groups, resistance training supports the motor-output side, and sleep affects your score more on any given day than a decade of ageing does.
If you want to track your own curve, run the test on the same device a few times a year and keep the numbers. Your own trend line is far more informative than any published table, including this one.