Interestingly, statistics like those, from that very game, are being used to make the argument that people have an "implicit racial bias" against blacks in the Police on Police Shootings study commissioned by Governor Patterson of New York. I tend to think there are other factors involved that make it more difficult to define the precise cause. For example, a black or dark gun in the hand of a white person is more easily distinguishable than the same gun in a black person's hand. The blacker the person, the more the gun "dissolves" into the background. And a shiny gun is more easily distinguished in a black hand than a white one. So, while there may be a racial component to the variations in reaction time, there may also not be. Furthermore, a black wallet in a black hand might be harder to distinguish than a silver cell phone in a black hand, and so forth.RHENRIKSEN wrote:RACIST!!!!! You're sooo much quicker to shoot a Black Man! Burn him! BURN the racist!C-dub wrote: Average reaction time:
Black Armed:573.56ms
White Armed:609.6ms
So before these "scientists" pick up on "implicit racial bias", they might want to do a bit more in depth research.
Mind you, I'm not saying there is no racial prejudice in America. There most certainly is. I've experienced it myself, when in the company of black friends and when my daughter was dating a black man. I just think that, like Maya Angelou's revelation in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, what one takes as racial prejudice could just be a rude person.
I also question whether 37ms is a statistically significant different in reaction time. That's about 5% faster in the case that you quote, but we're still talking milliseconds. I think you'd have to take into account the factors I've cited to really determine if the difference can't be accounted for by the ease or lack of ease with which the item in the hand can be identified.