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by Bad Response ..	15 Jun 2008 04:04 PM
Rick, It's been mentioned elsewhere (in other threads on the subject of reaction time) that my machine is a quad core, built by Jimmy Zirconium, overclocked to 3.1 by virtue of a Red Bull cooling system... (mostly serious :)). Moving from my old single core to this machine gave me between 10 and 15ms advantage on Exercise #1. However, I found that the quicker you go, the more intensely you have to focus in order to maintain adequate concentration levels. It also worth mentioning (or not) that I was up to about 3500, 4000 attempts on exercise 1 before I got the new machine and I've since added another 1000 or so attempts. So, it could just be that my times are better than others because I've done the exercise 4900 times more than most (most notably Jimmy) whose only about 1000 behind). With some sadness I worked out that, at 1min per run (very conservative estimate) that is 4900 minutes or 81 hours over the course of 8 months (which is how long it took me to get that time) Faster or slower machines (or keyboards, etc, for that matter) will do very little to improve or damage your concentration. What will damage it is: - A machine that has lots of tripe running on it (Apple I-pod software update used to periodically spike my exercise #1 times. - An inconsistent approach to the exercise, i.e. are you looking at the same place on screen throughout the exercise, are your hands positioned the same way, is your breathing the same, etc. I don't think you can move to the next level (whatever that is for you) on the exercise (or any exercise for that matter) unless you look beyond the score as Bruce suggests (at least I couldn't). The score by itself is just too abstract for your brain to get any kind of meaningful feedback just by comparing the score against previous scores. You may need to understand the reaction time and concentration separately. For example.. the reaction time is a median calculation. What that means is that your 11th fastest reaction time will in fact be your average. What I used to do as I started to get a bit quicker is pick a target time, say 180ms for the sake of argument, and look at the breakdown of my #1 run and see how many times I had been equal to or under 180ms. If if was 5 times out of the 20 I would make my next target 6 times out of 20, then 7, then 8, etc..... Once I got to 11 out of 20 equal to or less than 180ms, I would lower the target to maybe 175ms or 170ms, etc. I'm sure you get the picture. During this time I wouldn't be particularly worried about concentration or score for that matter. As you get more times equal to or less than your target your concentration, and hence your score, will improve anyway. Many of the other guys who do well may have other views on this or other techniques, but that is my 2 cents worth. BTW. It surprises me that given that this question keeps coming up again and again that nobody has started an exercise group dedicated to exercise #1, #1a and #1b. All chat, advice, tips specifically related to exercise 1 could be attahced to that group so that it didn't keep coming up on the main board, The password for the group could be published so that anyone could join. If you or Possum care to start one and publish the details, I would join, as would a few others I'm sure. I'm also surprised that the stuff relating to performace isn't in a sticky FAQ thread so that it wouldn't end up in the middle of 58 topic threads. Anyway. Good luck with your efforts :)
by Possum < Squirrel !.	11 Jun 2008 12:28 AM
I feel the exact same as you Rob. I am awful at exercise #1, although I only do #1c now, which I think is more lenient on scoring, or I do better at it anyway. It does seem really hard to improve. I'd also be very interested in hearing advice from people who do well at this exercise.
by Rick C.	09 Jun 2008 09:12 AM
Hey, again, When I use my laptop computer for Exercise #1, my reaction time is greatly diminished. My desktop computer is much better with its traditional keyboard. I also use Mozilla Firefox 3.0. I wonder what type of computer set up Mr. Beanius, the all-time leader on exercise #1, runs. Rick
by GEEZERBRAIN R.	08 Jun 2008 01:27 PM
Wireless keyboard will kill all your scores in every exercise. I have one but shelved it for a regular keyboard. In the 70+ group, we have a hard time scoring over 100 on exercise one. Geezerbrain
by rob g.	08 Jun 2008 11:26 AM
i cant understand why my reaction time is so awful my best ever is 127 mostly about 100. i use to have pretty fast reactions when i was younger. i dont practice this exercise cos i never get anywhere with it. i dont know can one really improve on reaction time. i use a wireless keyboard now so maybe thats having an effect. but i got my crappy 127 on a normal keyboard. id really like to improve it, but dont know how much i should practice this exercise to improve?
by Rick C.	07 Jun 2008 02:30 PM
Bruce, Thanks for the explanation. I find that when I anticipate the green light, my finger muscles become very tense, which makes my reaction time a lot slower, hence the out-of-place response times here and there. Rick
by Bruce F.	07 Jun 2008 12:31 PM
Rick, Welcome to our site. In Exercise #1, Performance is a function of Reaction Time, Accuracy and Concentration. In your run where you scored 112, your Concentration was only 68.08. This rather low Concentration rating resulted from two abnormally slow responses (one was 376 ms and the other was 421 ms). I trust that you have figured out that by clicking on Trial-by-Trial Analysis of This Exercise you can see the Reaction Time for each of your trials. So, the bottom line here is that you must not only be fast, but you must be consistent as well. And this is what training with MyBrainTrainer should help you accomplish. Bruce
by Rick C.	07 Jun 2008 08:41 AM
Hey, guys, I joined the mybraintrainer.com web site this morning. Right now I'm working on my reaction time on exercise #1 (155.95 is my best so far); however, I had a question. For some reason, I had a few runs where my average reaction time was around 190ms and scored a total of 112 on Performance. Yet, on my last run, my average reaction time was 211, but my overall performance score was 140.26. And, keep in my mind, I didn't miss any on either run. Why is my performance score so much different? I look forward to participating in this community. Thanks, Rick C.

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