How the test works

Five arrows appear in a row. Tap the left or right button, or press the arrow keys, for the direction of the middle one. Half the time the four others point the same way, half the time they point the opposite way. After each answer the screen goes blank for 140 ms, then a new row appears.

You have 20 seconds. Your score is the number of correct answers. The detail shows your errors and your median time per correct answer.

What the flanker task measures

In 1974 Barbara and Charles Eriksen asked people to identify a target letter surrounded by other letters, and showed that nearby letters that called for a different answer slowed people down (Eriksen and Eriksen, 1974). The arrow version keeps that idea. Your eyes take in the whole row, and you must keep only the centre.

Researchers call this selective attention, the ability to filter out what is next to what matters. It is the same family of skill as the Stroop test, where the word competes with the ink.

Why it is a free game, outside the card

The difference between mismatched and matched rows, the flanker cost, is a robust effect on average and a weak measure of one person. In a test retest study it reached a reliability of only 0.40 and 0.57 (Hedge et al., 2018). A score that moves that much from week to week would make your card move for no reason, so the flanker stays a free game.

It has no published norm in this format either, so no percentile is shown.

Questions

What is a good flanker score?

There is no public norm for this format. Track your own correct answers and errors over a few games, the second number matters as much as the first.

Is the flanker test used to diagnose ADHD?

It is used in research on attention, but a short online game cannot diagnose anything. Only a professional assessment can.

What this test does not tell you

It measures how fast and how accurately you follow a central arrow on this device. It does not measure intelligence or any attention disorder.

With no norm and a modest reliability, compare yourself only with your own games, on the same device.

Sources

Eriksen B.A., Eriksen C.W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception and Psychophysics 16, 143 to 149. doi.org/10.3758/BF03203267
Hedge C., Powell G., Sumner P. (2018). The reliability paradox. Behavior Research Methods 50(3), 1166 to 1186. PMC5990556. doi.org/10.3758/s13428-017-0935-1

Written by the Headgame team

Updated 16 October 2026. Scientific reviewer not yet appointed. Every figure links to its source.

Flanker test