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Even for certain applications, 50ms is quite a lot. When using MIDI devices and playing piano over the computer, I certainly notice anything above 20ms.

We may be slow to react to sudden events, but we are very good at noticing the lag for predictive events (keyboard typing, piano playing, ...).



Yes, a single 60-Hz-frame delay (~16.7 ms) can certainly be noticeable.


Martin Molin of the Wintergatan fame recently posted some experiments regarding latency on his YouTube channel[0]. From watching those videos it becomes quite obvious that your statement is definitely correct.

[0] This is the first one about the recent experiments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyIk0IqC7SQ


Yeah this rule of thumb was for low fidelity things like hand radio buttons.

> We may be slow to react to sudden events, but we are very good at noticing the lag for predictive events (keyboard typing, piano playing, ...).

It does make sense in my lay person’s understanding that the chain of eye -> brain -> hand for reactive events would be slower than brain —> eye + hand for proactive events.




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