> But that's for events that can be planned in advance, right?
Not planned, but an unconscious reaction or muscle memory. There isn't enough time to think about something and then trigger your muscles to move. It's got to be second nature to hit that level of "reaction time".
Yeah, that's also along what I was thinking (as noted later), but also I think you can also get close or achieve if you can prime yourself because you know the event is coming, and get the timing down. Sort of like the cyclone arcade game (if it wasn't a scam[1]). I think there's a huge difference between hitting a random 100ms time and hitting a 100ms time that's coming at a set time that you can see and judge. That's what I meant by "planned", even if it poorly encapsulates that.
I think in some cases it can be planned, in the sense that Walter Murch talked about frame-perfect cuts in video editing (which apparently is common and other expert film editors can do it too, not just Walter Murch). In that case the details of the video you're reacting to would literally be different for every cut, so the ability seems slightly more generic, because it's not aligned to exactly the same sensory or physiological cue each time it's used.
> "One of the most obvious reasons for this standard pattern is that while it is possible for any number of factors to extend the response time of a given trial, it is not physiologically possible to shorten RT on a given trial past the limits of human perception (typically considered to be somewhere between 100-200 ms), nor is it logically possible for the duration of a trial to be negative."
Because you're not reacting immediately. You're watching something move over a second or longer and hitting the button when they line up.
To prove it's not reaction time, you could even close your eyes for the last half second. And someone could do this on a trick they just learned and don't have muscle memory for.
> nor is it logically possible for the duration of a trial to be negative.
Yet hitting the button early for a trick with a small window of frames happens constantly. That by itself should show it's not a matter of reaction time.
Not planned, but an unconscious reaction or muscle memory. There isn't enough time to think about something and then trigger your muscles to move. It's got to be second nature to hit that level of "reaction time".