Comparison of Reaction Time Between eSports Players of Different Genres and Sportsmen

Abstract

Quick reactions are considered important in both, traditional and electronic sports and research findings suggest that reaction time can be optimized by both sports activity and playing action video games. In this study, reaction and motor times of 18 professional and 21 non-professional eSports players from different genres and 36 non-professional traditional sportsmen were compared using the Vienna Test System. No differences between the groups were found in simple visual, acoustic, and choice reaction times. Differentiated by game genre, players from sports simulations had significantly shorter reaction times than MOBA players in the acoustic and choice reaction test. The results of this study suggest that traditional sports and eSports may improve reaction times to a similar amount. Furthermore, various game genres require different reaction times or may affect related abilities in different ways.