Dots flash for 0.2 seconds and vanish. Do not count them — most people fall apart around five or six
How it works
Watch the cross in the middle; dots appear for 0.2 seconds and are gone. Type how many there were and press ✓. Three mistakes end the run, and the number of rounds you cleared is your score.
- The count is never the same. It is drawn at random from a five-wide range, starting at 3-7.
- A correct answer shifts the whole range up by one (4-8, then 5-9, and so on), so the dots keep multiplying.
- 0.2 seconds is too short to move your eyes and count. That is the point of the condition.
- You get four seconds to answer, so there is no time to sit and recount an afterimage.
- The current range is revealed after you answer, never before — knowing it would turn this into a five-way multiple choice.
- A wrong answer costs a life but leaves the range where it is.
- Dots shrink as they get more numerous, so you cannot read the count off how crowded the board looks.
Why five or six?
People do not count small quantities one by one; they see them at once. This is called subitizing. When Kaufman and colleagues flashed dot arrays for 200 ms in 1949, performance was essentially perfect up to about five items and then degraded sharply. Past six you stop counting and start estimating.
Where exactly that break happens varies from person to person, and with how the dots are arranged. This test walks the count upward to find your ceiling.
Scoring
| Score | Rounds cleared, which is the same as how far the range climbed |
|---|---|
| Why not the largest count? | Because the count is drawn at random. Ranking by it would reward whoever happened to draw a big number, so the score uses the one quantity luck cannot touch |
| Ties | Whoever missed by less ranks higher. Saying 14 for 15 is not the same as saying 9 |
| Lives | Three, one per wrong answer |
| Flash time | Fixed at 0.2 s. It never gets longer, however many dots there are |
| Grades | 15+ rounds "you see, you do not count", 11+ top tier, 7+ above average, 4+ typical |
How to push the count up
- Stay on the centre. If your eyes chase a dot, the round is over. 0.2 s is not even enough for one saccade.
- Group them. Above seven nothing arrives as one lump. Seeing 3+3+2 carries you past ten.
- Do not try to count. The moment you start ticking dots off, accuracy drops — you will not finish in time.
- Guess close, not random. Ties are broken by how far off your misses were, so write the number that feels nearest.
- Use the afterimage. About a tenth of a second of it survives; grouping within that window is worth one or two more.
Frequently asked questions
The dots look like they overlap
They never do. Dots are placed with a minimum spacing, and they shrink as the count rises so there is always room.
Why is the answer timed?
Without a limit you could screenshot the board and count at leisure. Four seconds is generous if you already saw it and far too short to recount.
Isn't it unfair that the dots shrink?
The area they cover stays roughly the same, which is the point: if dots stayed large and multiplied, you could read the count off sheer density instead of seeing it.
Is a phone worse than a desktop?
No. The board is a square sized to the screen width and dot sizes scale with it, so the same round looks the same on both.
Related tests
- Flash Anzan — adding numbers that flash past.
- Chimp Test — remembering where numbers were.
- Schulte Table — taking in a wide field without moving your eyes.
- Dynamic Vision Test — reading something that is already moving away.