Respond to the center arrow only — press ← Left or → Right. Ignore the arrows around it. 40 trials, measuring attention and reaction speed.
Created by Eriksen & Eriksen (1974), the Flanker task shows that humans are slower and less accurate when surrounding arrows point the opposite direction (incongruent trials) vs the same direction (congruent trials). The difference — the Flanker Effect — measures your attentional filtering ability.
Pair with the Stroop Test and Go/No-Go for a complete executive function profile.
Developed by Barbara and Charles Eriksen in 1974, the Flanker paradigm has become one of cognitive psychology's most widely used tools. The core finding: responses to a target stimulus are slower and less accurate when surrounding "flanker" stimuli point in the opposite direction (incongruent) versus the same direction (congruent). This Flanker Effect — typically 40–80ms of RT cost and 5–10% accuracy loss — quantifies how effectively your attention system can select relevant information and suppress irrelevant competing input.
Unlike the Stroop effect (which involves semantic interference), the Flanker effect is spatial — the irrelevant information is literally adjacent to the target. This spatial competition between stimuli engages the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a brain region central to conflict monitoring and top-down attentional control. Flanker performance is commonly used as an index of ACC efficiency.
The Flanker test is particularly relevant to driving safety — where ignoring peripheral distractions while maintaining lane attention is critical — and to academic performance in environments with visual distractions. Children with ADHD consistently show elevated Flanker effects compared to neurotypical controls, making it a useful screening instrument in developmental cognitive neuroscience.
Average RT across all trials is typically 380–450ms. The key metric is the congruency effect — the RT difference between incongruent and congruent trials. A small congruency effect (under 40ms) indicates efficient attentional filtering. A large effect (over 80ms) suggests difficulty suppressing spatial competitors — which may improve with attention training.