1Get ready
Alerting
Thalamus · deep
The plus sign before each row puts your brain on alert. Warning cues speed up responses.
Three kinds of row, three speeds
The game mixes three kinds of row. Play a round and your own average time fills in below.
→→→→→
Match
All arrows agree. The fastest kind of row.
–your average
→→←→→
Clash
Neighbours point the other way. You have to block them out.
–your average
——←——
Neutral
Dashes carry no direction. A baseline for comparison.
–your average
THE SPOTLIGHT
Attention works like a beam, not a pin
You can't focus on one arrow alone, your attention spills onto whatever sits nearby. Push the neighbours further away and the interference fades. Drag the slider to see it.
→→←→→
Tight row: neighbours sit inside your beam
Interference
Where your flankers live
Driving in traffic
Tracking the car ahead while brake lights flash in the lanes on either side.
Reading dense pages
Keeping your eyes on one line while neighbouring lines tug for attention.
Busy screens
Finding the one notification that matters in a crowded dashboard or inbox.
Sport
Following the ball carrier while defenders move in your peripheral vision.
Narrow your beam, step by step
Move up a rung when you hit 90% accuracy with a flanker effect under 60 ms.
01→ → ← → →
Wide gaps
Extra space between arrows. Learn the rule without much pull from the neighbours.
02→→←→→
Standard row
The classic tight layout used in research.
03→→←→→ ⏱
Faster pace
Shorter pauses between rows. Less time to reset your focus.
04←←→←←
Mostly clashes
Four in five rows conflict. Your brain can’t rely on the neighbours at all.
INSIDE YOUR BRAIN
Three attention systems, one arrow
Psychologist Michael Posner described attention as three networks working together. A flanker trial uses all three in under a second.
1
Based on Gray's Anatomy, fig. 728 (public domain)
2Where to look
Orienting
Parietal lobe
Moves the spotlight to the centre of the row, the beam you saw in the slider above.
3What to ignore
Executive
Anterior cingulate · deep
Settles the clash when neighbours disagree with the middle arrow. This network produces your flanker effect.
HHKHH
The original version used letters, not arrows
1974
A husband-and-wife experiment
Barbara and Charles Eriksen asked people to respond to a centre letter while ignoring the letters beside it. Neighbours that called for a different response slowed everyone down, even when people knew exactly where to look. Arrows came later and are now the standard.
SourcesEriksen, B. A. & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 143–149.Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Sommer, T., Raz, A. & Posner, M. I. (2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 340–347.Posner, M. I. & Petersen, S. E. (1990). The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25–42.
WHAT THIS GAME TRAINS
Ignoring what's right next to you
Respond to the middle arrow and ignore the ones beside it. When the neighbours point the other way you slow down; this game measures and trains how well you filter them out.
corestrongsomelight
coreSelective attentionFocusing on the centre item only.
coreInterference controlResisting the pull of conflicting flankers.
strongResponse speedAnswering quickly on every trial.
someError monitoringNoticing and correcting slips.
More attention games
All 40 games →RED
Name the ink colour of a word that spells a different colour.
After FlankerSame skill, blocking a distraction, but the clash is inside one word instead of around it.
Play Stroop →● ● ✕ ●
Tap fast for targets, freeze when a lure appears.
After FlankerMoves from ignoring what’s around you to stopping an action you’ve already started.
Play Go / No-Go →▲ ● ▲
Sort by colour, then by shape, the rule keeps changing.
After FlankerAdds a second rule, so your spotlight has to move between goals, not just places.
Play Task Switching →○○●○○
Find the one odd item in a crowded grid as fast as you can.
After FlankerFlips the task: instead of ignoring neighbours, you scan them all for the target.
Play Visual Search →