Schulte Table Online: Free Focus & Speed Test
The Schulte Table is a classic grid of shuffled numbers used by speed readers, athletes, and cognitive researchers to train visual search speed and peripheral vision. Play it online for free: find 1 through 25 in order, as fast as you can, and get an instant score. No download and no sign-up required to start.
A quiet round of Schulte Table — 5×5. When you start, everything else fades — just you and the task.
No sign-up needed. Press Esc to exit anytime.
Tip
Anchor your gaze in the middle. A 5×5 grid is small enough that every cell stays within peripheral reach of the center one. Each time your eyes go hunting you pay for the movement and then have to re-find your place, and the cell you wanted was visible from the middle the whole time.
Everything here is free
Every test, every difficulty, no limit and no account. If it is useful to you, you can chip in — entirely optional, and nothing changes either way.
Schulte Table: what it is and where it comes from
What is a Schulte Table? A Schulte Table is a grid of shuffled numbers that you find in ascending order as fast as you can, attributed to the German psychiatrist Walter Schulte. It has no single standard procedure; this version scores how quickly and accurately you scan the grid. Focani's free browser version runs 25 cells per session and needs no sign-up.
| Specification | Schulte Table |
|---|---|
| Primary cognitive domain | Scanning speed — in the “Finding things fast” group |
| Original citation | No single published source. Attributed to Walter Schulte, a German psychiatrist, in the 1950s. It is the one item here with no canonical published procedure in English — grid size, layout and scoring differ between sources, and it appears far more in Russian-language attention research than in Anglophone journals. |
| Core dependent metrics | Completion time (s) · False alarms (commission errors) |
| Standard stimulus / trial parameters | No reference procedure exists. A 5×5 grid is the most widely circulated form. |
| This version | 5×5 — 25 cells · 7×7 — 49 cells · 10×10 — 100 cells |
| Browser adaptation notes | With no reference version there is nothing to deviate from — and equally nothing to compare a result against. It is a scanning exercise, not an instrument. |
Full sources for every test, and what each version changes, are on the instructors page.
How to play
- Fix your eyes on the center of the grid and try not to let them wander.
- Using your peripheral vision, locate number 1 and click or tap it.
- Keep going in order — 2, 3, 4… — as fast as you can without losing accuracy.
- Finish the grid to see your time, accuracy, and score instantly.
Schulte Table tips
Ways to play it better — each one comes from how this version actually scores, not from general advice about concentration.
Anchor your gaze in the middle
A 5×5 grid is small enough that every cell stays within peripheral reach of the center one. Each time your eyes go hunting you pay for the movement and then have to re-find your place, and the cell you wanted was visible from the middle the whole time.
The back half of the grid is the easy half
Numbers you have already found dim out, so the field of candidates thins as you go and the last few are almost handed to you. A faster run is won in the first half of the grid — sprinting at the end has very little left to win.
A misclick is cheaper than a stall
Accuracy is scored out of every number in the grid — on the 5×5 that is 25 — so a single wrong tap takes under four percent off the multiplier. That is a smaller penalty than it feels like: a spell of freezing to be certain will usually cost you more, so keep moving.
One caveat worth knowing: a change of strategy moves your score for reasons that have nothing to do with attention. Your dashboard reads each session against your own recent ones, so if you adopt something from this list, give it a few sessions before reading anything into the trend.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Schulte Table used for?+
It's a grid of shuffled numbers used to train and measure visual search speed, peripheral vision, and attention. Fixing your gaze on the center while finding numbers in order exercises how quickly you can locate information without moving your eyes.
What is a good Schulte Table 5x5 average time?+
Times vary a lot with practice. Many people start around 40–60 seconds for a 5×5 grid and improve toward 20–30 seconds. Focani scores each attempt on both speed and accuracy so you can track your own trend rather than chase a single number.
Do I need an account to play the Schulte Table online?+
No. You can play and see your score without signing up. A free account only adds saving your scores, viewing your history, and appearing on the leaderboard.
Is the Schulte Table good for focus problems?+
It's a focus-training exercise, not a medical test or diagnosis. Many people use it to practice sustained, selective attention. It is not a substitute for professional assessment.
Where this fits
- Processing Speed Test — Visual scanning speed with a fixed gaze. The bottleneck is how much of the grid your peripheral vision can serve up without your eyes moving.
Related attention paradigms
Finding things fast — closest to this one
- Visual Search — practices and measures scanning speed and sustained attention.
- Cancellation Task — practices and measures visual scanning and selective attention.
- Trail Making Test — practices and measures processing speed and attention switching.