Attention and Control
Five arrows, one that matters. The flanker test measures how well you keep your attention on a target while nearby distractors point the other way.
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Example
In the second row the outer arrows point left, but the center points right. Most people are a little slower and make more errors on rows like this.
Arrows appear in a single painted frame and your response time comes from the input event itself.
Based on the flanker paradigm introduced by Barbara and Charles Eriksen in 1974.
The task uses only direction, so color vision does not affect it. A good alternative to the Stroop test.
Your sessions stay in this browser. No sign-up and no uploads.
See the flanker effect, accuracy by condition, timeouts and a trial-by-trial chart.
Practice mode tells you after each answer whether you were right.
How much slower you are when the flankers disagree with the center arrow.
How it is calculatedIncongruent mean RT minus congruent mean RT, correct trials only
Share of trials answered correctly. Timeouts count as errors.
How it is calculatedCorrect answers divided by all trials, as a percent
Errors usually cluster on incongruent rows. A big gap means the flankers often won.
How it is calculatedCorrect divided by trials, separately for each condition
Trials with no answer within 2 seconds. Many timeouts point to hesitation.
How it is calculatedCount of trials with no response in 2000 ms
These bands are site-defined guidance for adults on a desktop computer or a recent phone. They are not population norms and not a diagnosis.
| Band | Range | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Excellent | below 30 ms | The flankers barely affected you. |
| Good | 30-59 ms | A small, normal cost of conflict. |
| Average | 60-99 ms | Where many sessions land. |
| Needs practice | 100 ms or more | The flankers pulled hard on your attention. |
| Band | Range | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Excellent | 95% or more | Almost no errors. |
| Good | 85-94% | A few slips on hard rows. |
| Average | 70-84% | Speed may be costing accuracy. |
| Needs practice | below 70% | Slow down and fix your eyes on the center. |
Barbara and Charles Eriksen introduced the flanker task in 1974 using letters. Later versions switched to arrows, which are quick to understand and work across languages.
It is now one of the standard tools for studying selective attention.
The flanker test measures how well you filter out nearby distractions. Your eyes take in all five arrows at once, but only the center one should guide your answer.
When the flankers disagree, your brain briefly prepares the wrong response and has to correct it.
Attention works a bit like a spotlight with soft edges. Things just outside the focus still get processed and can start a response.
The flanker effect is the time it takes to resolve this competition. Researchers link it to the same conflict monitoring systems involved in the Stroop task.
Sleep, age, screen size and viewing distance all play a role. On a small phone screen the arrows sit closer together, which can make the effect larger.
Results also improve with practice, so compare sessions on the same device after a warm-up.
Half of the rows are congruent, with all five arrows pointing the same way. The other half are incongruent, with the center arrow pointing against the four flankers. The direction of the target is also balanced, so left and right answers are equally common.
The test never shows the same kind of row more than three times in a row. This keeps the sequence unpredictable, so you cannot answer from rhythm alone.
Fast answers are not always good answers. If your accuracy on incongruent rows is much lower than on congruent rows, the flankers often won before you could check the center.
The result screen therefore shows accuracy for each condition and counts timeouts separately. Read the flanker effect together with these numbers rather than on its own.
Most people get faster on the flanker test over their first few sessions, on both congruent and incongruent rows. The flanker effect itself often shrinks a little too, as you learn to narrow your attention to the center.
For a fair comparison, run one Practice session before recording a Standard result, and compare results after that warm-up.
The flanker task appears in studies of attention, aging, development, bilingualism and mindfulness.
A quick, language-free classroom demonstration of how distraction slows decisions.
Track how sleep, caffeine or focus routines change your flanker effect over weeks.
Flanker tasks are part of some research test batteries. This online version does not diagnose anything.
Keep your eyes on the fixation cross. The center arrow appears exactly there.
The arrow keys or F and J give the most precise timing on a computer.
A quick guess is better than a timeout. Timeouts count as errors.
Viewing distance changes how close the flankers look. Keep it similar between sessions.
It is an attention task where you respond to a central arrow while ignoring the arrows on either side. The slowdown when they disagree is called the flanker effect.
A cross appears for half a second, then five arrows. You answer left or right based on the center arrow. After a short blank the next row appears, until the timer ends.
Practice is 30 seconds, Standard is 60 seconds and Challenge is 3 minutes.
Yes. Press P, use the pause button, or switch tabs. The interrupted trial is discarded. Stop shows a result once you have at least 12 trials.
Any modern browser on a computer, tablet or phone. On phones, use the two large buttons.
The flanker effect shows how much the distractors slowed you. Accuracy shows how often you were right. A small effect with high accuracy means strong focus.
On this site an effect below 30 ms is Excellent and 30-59 ms is Good. These are site guidance bands, not clinical norms.
Open History from the menu, or use View history on the result screen.
Results stay in your browser storage only. Nothing goes to a server.
Reload the page and try again. If the arrow keys scroll the page, click inside the test first.
Yes. Both measure how well you handle conflicting information, and the flanker test does not depend on color vision or reading, which makes it usable in any language.
Without a time limit, a person could wait until the conflict fades completely. The 2 second limit keeps the task focused on fast, controlled decisions.
Results depend on age, device, sleep, language, mood and practice. Average several sessions before drawing conclusions. This is not a medical or psychological diagnostic tool.
It takes about a minute. Your results stay private in this browser.