Reaction Time Survey Questions

Reaction Time measures how quickly a respondent reacts to a stimulus — a word, phrase, or image — instead of just what they choose. Domandata timestamps the moment a stimulus appears and the moment the respondent answers using performance.now(), the same high-resolution clock browsers use for animation timing, rather than the wall-clock timestamps most survey timing features rely on. It is well suited to lexical decision and categorization tasks, implicit-attitude style paradigms, simple detection tasks, and any study where latency itself is the dependent variable, not just the response.

One question runs a full sequence of trials — stimulus, timed response, repeat — the same way a MaxDiff question runs multiple trials internally. Reaction Time is a beta feature; enable beta access in account settings to see it in the question type picker.

• Trials: each trial is a text or image stimulus. Add an optional category label (for example, "congruent" / "incongruent") to group trials during analysis — respondents never see it.
• Correct response: mark a trial's correct response to get per-trial accuracy scoring alongside timing. Leave it unset for tasks with no correct answer, such as simple detection.
• Response mode: respondents can answer by keypress (map keys like F and J to response labels), on-screen click, or both.
• Fixation and inter-trial timing: configure the fixation-cross duration shown before each stimulus and the blank-screen gap between trials.
• Timeout: optionally cap how long a respondent has to answer before a trial is recorded as timed out and the sequence moves on.
• Trial order: randomized per respondent by default, for order counterbalancing — turn it off if trial order itself is part of the design.

1. Step 1: Open Block Builder. Open the survey and select the block where the timed task belongs.

   Step 1: Open Block Builder

2. Step 2: Add a Reaction Time question. Choose Reaction Time from the question type selector.

   Step 2: Choose Reaction Time question type

3. Step 3: Build the trial list. Add each stimulus, mark a correct response where applicable, and set an optional category for analysis grouping.

4. Step 4: Set response mode and labels. Choose keypress, click, or both, then name each response and assign a key if keypress is enabled.

5. Step 5: Tune timing. Set the fixation duration, the gap between trials, and an optional response timeout to match your paradigm.

6. Step 6: Name and code it. Add a readable variable name before piloting so the per-trial columns are easy to interpret in export.

   Step 6: Variable Name

7. Step 7: Preview the sequence. Run through the fixation → stimulus → response cycle yourself to confirm timing feels right before fielding.

   Step 7: Preview the sequence

Each response exports one column group per authored trial — stimulus, category, response, reaction time in milliseconds, correctness, and whether it timed out — keyed by the trial's authored position, not the shuffled order any individual respondent saw. This keeps a given trial's column meaning consistent across every respondent even though trial order is randomized per person. Domandata also computes summary columns: mean reaction time, accuracy (when any trial has a correct response configured), and a timeout count.

• MaxDiff Survey Questions for another trial-based question format
• Attention and Manipulation Checks
• Survey Variable Names and Recodes
• Export Research Survey Responses