Flanker Test: Can You Read Just the Middle Arrow?
The Eriksen flanker task is the cleanest way to measure how well you can narrow attention to one spot. Five arrows appear in a row and only the middle one matters — but the four flanking it point the same way, the opposite way, or nowhere at all, and your answer gets slower and less accurate when they disagree. That slowdown is the flanker effect, and this test measures yours. Free to play, scored instantly, no sign-up required.
A quiet round of Flanker Test — Standard. When you start, everything else fades — just you and the task.
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How to play
- A row of five arrows appears. Only the centre one carries the answer.
- Tap the button matching the direction the MIDDLE arrow points.
- The four around it are noise — sometimes helpful, sometimes actively wrong.
- Finish all trials to see your accuracy and your flanker effect — the milliseconds the conflicting arrows cost you.
Frequently asked questions
What is the flanker test?+
A task from attention research, introduced by Eriksen and Eriksen in 1974. You respond to a central target while irrelevant items flank it. When the flankers point the opposite way, responses slow down — showing that attention cannot be narrowed perfectly to a single location, so nearby items get processed whether you want them to or not.
What does the flanker effect measure?+
How much irrelevant information from around your target leaks into your response. A smaller flanker effect means you filtered the surroundings out more successfully on that run. It moves with fatigue and practice, so treat one session as a snapshot rather than a fixed trait.
Why are some trials just dashes?+
Those are neutral trials, and they are the baseline the other two conditions get measured against. Without them you cannot tell whether matching flankers sped you up or conflicting flankers slowed you down — the gap between congruent and incongruent alone can't separate the two.
How is the flanker test different from the Stroop test?+
Both create conflict, but in different places. In the Stroop test the conflict is inside a single stimulus — the word fights the ink colour. In the flanker task the target is completely unambiguous; the conflict comes from other items sitting next to it. So Stroop stresses suppressing an automatic process, while the flanker task stresses narrowing attention in space.
Where this fits
- Attention Span Test — Conflict a third time, now purely spatial. The centre arrow is perfectly clear; the four crowding it are not part of the question, and they slow you down anyway.
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