BBC: People are quicker when reacting than when initiating

[DWx]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8493092.stm

Thought this was pretty interesting. Says people's movements are about 21 milliseconds quicker when they are reacting to something rather than when they've pre-planned it.

Kinda supports arguments for not learning loads of pre-planned reactions to attacks.

[Kuma]

This still is preplanned though as it's still one particular action reacting to a particular action. Now if the actor only had one button and the reactor had multiple buttons, that'd be a different story.

[Toptomcat]

Even the latter half of the story suggests that not all is as it initially seems here, though it's somewhat unclearly written as to exactly where the 23 ms/200 ms figures are coming from- an instance of science-writing-via-journalism-major syndrome, I suspect.

[sensei8]

Yes, it's very interesting. Thanks for the article Danielle.

It's like super-human strength needed to save a life, like picking up a car off of someone. It wasn't pre-planned, therefore, that needed strength was called upon when that 'moment' occured.

We practice our techniques over and over and over, but, they're pre-planned...slower. Whenever we encounter something in our daily unplanned lifes and this something is an attacker bent on harming us, our responses are much faster and more focused.

Still, I'll keep practices pre-planned reactions and then some because I believe that my reactions will then become automatic whenever I'm attacked, but, I'll be 21 milliseconds much more faster across the board.

[pakua]

Very interesting... I think that this happens because you don't need to process the idea to do a movement, you just do, the emptiness it's the player