In the early years of the North Sea there was an accident where a helicopter (a Wessex I think) crashed in an uncotrolled way and low/zero RPM was diagnosed. Some research was done following that where engione failures were simulated in a simulator to commercial pilots. Unless my recollection is completely wrong, I am sure that EVERY pilot took more than 1 second to lower the lever, even though they knew "something" was going to happen.
I will try and dig out the source - I think it was an AAIB report