Fingers faster than your reaction time.

You ever done this: Rapidly tap a key to move through a list (where you can't see the next item) or perform some other kind of function and tell yourself that when you hit the right item you'll stop tapping the key. Then, unless you go pretty slowly, you nearly always overshoot!

Well I figured out that this is due to the average human reaction time being 180ms and your finger can be told to tap faster than this by muscle memory (or something). So you can tap away at say 1 tap every 50ms, your brain sees the item and says STOP and your finger carries on for a couple of taps.

It's quite funny really.

I have impressive reaction times but 20 times a second is a bit difficult for me ;)

But I get what you mean! :D

Yeah I'd say you're lucky to tap 10X a second.

oops, yeah 50ms is probably too fast.

maybe we should make a tap tester to find out who can tap the fastest. You know it's fastest from the elbow anyway like speed picking on a guitar.

Try this, took about 30 seconds to write and test, I got 11 taps per second ... hope the code is right ;)

taps = 0
mostTaps = 1
clock = MilliSecs()
Repeat
   If KeyHit( 57 ) Then taps = taps + 1
   If MilliSecs() - clock >= 1000
	If taps > mostTaps Then mostTaps = taps
	taps = 0
	clock = MilliSecs()
   EndIf
   Cls
   Text( 0, 0, mostTaps )
   Text( 0, 20, taps )
Until KeyDown(1)

Sometimes playing FPS I'm sure my hands work faster than my brain. I'll turn around and shoot someone in the head, before I've even realized that they are there. :)

That was probably me you shot :)

No one can beat 11 TPS huh?

Anyway, if it does take the brain 180 MS to react then my finger tapping is 2X the speed of my brain reaction time. I can tap once every 90.9 MS.

Here's that tap code in BMax form

Strict
Graphics( 640, 480 )
Local taps:Int = 0
Local mosttaps:Int = 1
Local clock:Int = MilliSecs()


Repeat 

If KeyHit( KEY_J ) Then taps:+ 1

If ((MilliSecs() - clock) >= 1000)
 If (taps > mosttaps) Then mosttaps = taps
 taps = 0
 clock = MilliSecs()
EndIf

Cls
DrawText( taps, 0, 0 )
DrawText( mostTaps, 0, 20)
Flip

Until KeyHit( KEY_ESCAPE )

Single finger tapping I couldn't get more than 9, dual finger tapping, 10. Although, I think I might have been limited more by my keyboard and it's lack of sensitivity than my actual tapping speed.

yeah that was my point really.

You have to account for your reaction time and stop 'early'

lol. Yeah I'll be sure to do that when I get my time-machine spectacles.

Heh, I actually do what DampeS8N said. Once you've trained your brain as to how early you need to stop, it can be a surprisingly accurate was of quickly getting the cursor to the desired position, etc. I do it all the time whilst coding - I thought everyone did. :P

yeah... so did I... I do it in things like winamp and in my html/php ... anything with a loooooong scroll bar.

8 taps when i first had a go,but my wrists were cold from being outside,made 9 after a nice long bath. :-]

big10p: Yeah so do I BUT my original post said "when you can't see the next item"...

Wow I can only manage 9 with my left and 8 with my right. tried on my MS NAtural keyboard and also my Nostromo (so much for increased performance!)

Ah.

Scored 12. Mis-spent youth playing Track n Field is to blame. :P

no way dude, what with one finger!

Yeah, one finger. Could prolly do better if I had a clicky keyboard, instead of this spongy-keyed thing. Only got it coz it was the only black one I could find at the time, to match the rest of my system. :)

Well, I was an ace at DT's Decathlon in my day, I reckon every 75 msecs achievable.... sorry , just checked the post, only way to do that is to keep the key pressed down.

Yeah I had that for the spectrum 48K lol

Oooh a 12 huh? Sweet ... I'll have to practice up!

I'm gonna start demanding screenshots. Maybe the code runs differently on different PCs! ;-)

Screenies are useless - they can be faked. You'll just have to trust everyone. :)

I don't think so, it's not doing anything very intense. It's one of those things where you just have to let your reflexes go, don't use muscle control, and let your finger spasm ... that's how I got 11. No matter what though that's as fast as my finger will fly.

Yeah, I played a lot of DT's decathlon on the Speccy, too. :)

I think I prefered Hyper Sports, though - loved the skeet shooting. Funny thing is, a friend of mine has the guy that wrote Hyper Sports (and several other games) as one of her MySpace friends. I told her to tell him the weight lifting was too hard. :P Small world, innit?!

cool haha. I remember Hyper Sports too. You know there was this whole deal about Daily Thomson being depicted as white in his game? Check it out on wiki.