Objective: Catch two targets inside a rapid stream of letters — the yellow letter (T1) and the X that may follow it (T2) — and see how your attention briefly "blinks" after the first target.
How it works:
- Letters flash one at a time in the center of the screen, about 10 per second
- One letter in each stream is yellow — remember which letter it was
- On some trials, an X appears somewhere after the yellow letter; on others there is no X
- After each stream, you answer two questions: which letter was yellow, and whether an X appeared after it
What is the attentional blink?
- When two targets appear in rapid succession, most people reliably spot the first but miss the second if it arrives roughly 200–500 ms later — as if attention briefly closes its shutter while processing the first target
- Your results split X detection into short gap (1–3 letters after the yellow one — inside the blink window) and long gap (5+ letters after — outside it)
- A large drop at the short gap compared to the long gap is the attentional blink; nearly everyone shows it
- X detection is only scored on trials where you got the yellow letter right, following the standard research method
Tips:
- Keep your eyes fixed on the center — the stream is too fast for your eyes to wander
- Run at least 20 trials for meaningful short-gap vs long-gap numbers