Is it worthwhile to get a gaming keyboard for improved reaction times in psychopy?

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Due to some left over funding that will be spent at a particular website, I have the option to get a couple of new keyboards to improve the quality of our reaction times. I’m wondering if it will greatly improve psychopy’s recorded reaction times if we use a gaming keyboard that reports 1 ms response times like this one, or if its a waste of time for some colorful lights.

I’m aware that a response box would be best but the manufacturer these funds will be applied to don’t make them. So it’s either this or the standard dell keyboards we got with the computers or some other keyboard, I suppose. Thanks in advance for any advice you might have!

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Most gaming keyboards have polling rates of 1,000-8,000 Hz making them comparable or better than button boxes. With many button boxes there is a way of testing the latency of the presses. I’m not sure if there are any benchmark tools to do something similar for the keyboard, but thankfully this site has run latency tests on over 100 gaming keyboards. Some have latencies less than 1ms, which is the typical advertised latency of most button boxes (e.g., Cedrus and Chronos). Another feature of some high end gaming keyboards is individual key lighting, so you can highlight the keys you want the subjects to press.

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