What's Your IQ

YOUR RESULTS

A good hint helps. A wrong one hurts more.

Three kinds of trial: an honest hint, a lying hint, and no hint at all. The gaps between them show your attention moving before your eyes do.

–Honest hint

–No hint

–Lying hint

BENEFIT–Faster when the hint was right — your attention was already waiting there.

COST–Slower when it lied — attention had to let go, move across, and re-lock.

YOUR TAKEAWAYPlay a round to see how much a hint helps — and how much a false one costs.

Attention works like a spotlight

Michael Posner described attention as a beam you can move without moving your eyes. Whatever sits in the beam gets processed faster and more clearly. Move your pointer over the panel to steer it.

Try to find the one R hidden among the other letters.

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Pulled or pushed?

The game has two cue types, and they drive two different attention systems. Switch between them above and compare your costs.

Top-downPushed by a goal

TriggerA symbol you have to interpret — the arrow.

SpeedSlower to kick in: roughly 300 ms.

ControlVoluntary. Ignore it if you know it lies.

Play with the arrow cue to see your cost here

Bottom-upPulled by an event

TriggerA sudden change right at the spot — the flash.

SpeedFast: works within about 100 ms.

ControlAutomatic. Hard to ignore even when useless.

Play with the flash cue to see your cost here

INSIDE YOUR BRAIN

The orienting network

Moving attention around space runs on a network across the top of the brain. Pick a region.

Based on Gray's Anatomy, fig. 728 (public domain)

1980the cueing task

Michael Posner showed people respond faster at a cued location even when their eyes don't move — proof that attention can shift on its own.

Posner, 1980

2 systems

A top-down network steers attention by goals (the arrow). A bottom-up network grabs it for sudden events (the flash).

Corbetta & Shulman, 2002

SourcesPosner (1980), Quarterly J. Experimental PsychologyCorbetta & Shulman (2002), Nature Reviews NeuroscienceKlein (2000), Trends in Cognitive Sciences

WHAT THIS GAME TRAINS

Where your attention goes before your eyes

A cue hints where a target will appear. When it's right, you're faster; when it's wrong, you pay a cost. The classic 1980 test of how attention shifts in space.

corestrongsomelight

coreSpatial attentionShifting focus to a cued location.

strongOrienting speedMoving attention quickly without moving your eyes.

strongDisengagingPulling attention back when the cue was wrong.

someResponse speedPressing as soon as the target appears.

BEYOND THE SCREEN