The Scene You
Thought You Saw.
Count moving circles for 18 seconds.
Then look at the exact same scene again.
All you need is a moment of focus and curiosity.
Read the instructions and give it a try once.
~2 min · No signup · Answers stay on your device
- 01 / CountTrack the pink circles
- 02 / AnswerEnter your count
- 03 / ReviewReview the 18 seconds
Visual tracking task with moving shapes. No audio or flashing effects. A static read-only explanation is also available.
View the mechanism without animation (includes spoilers)
Inspect the answer scene as a static image without participating in the task. Playback only starts if you choose to play it.
This task is an observational demo and does not diagnose or score attention or cognitive ability.
01 / Preparation
Follow Only the Pink Circles.
How many times do the pink circles cross the center line?
Count 1 each time the center of a circle crosses the line, from either direction. Do not count blue squares. There are 3 pink circles, and the clip runs for 18 seconds.
Begins after a 3-second countdown. Switching away or scrolling out pauses the experiment.
Count the Pink Circles.
1 count when crossing the center line · Both directions
18sCount only the pink circles
You can enter your count right after the clip.
02 / Answer
How Many Did You Count?
Experiment Interrupted
Try Again in a Calm Moment.
No results are recorded from an incomplete attempt. Retrying plays the same scene from the start. Since you have already seen part of it, conditions differ from a first-time attempt.
03 / Review
In the Same Scene, One More Thing.
You Were Looking at the Same 18 Seconds.
Paused · Play with button
Perhaps You Didn't See It Because You Were Focused.
When concentrating intensely on a specific task, people often fail to notice unexpected events occurring right in their visual field. This phenomenon is known as "inattentional blindness." The shapes in this experiment are an original interactive demo created by TryLab to explore this mechanism.
Whether you noticed it or not, this result does not measure your everyday attentiveness. The number of crossings you counted and your self-reported awareness of other events are reviewed separately.
Replaying after knowing the answer or trying other patterns differs from your initial first-time experience. Miss rates and comparative rankings with others are not calculated.
Background research: Simons & Chabris (1999). This experiment's results have not been validated as scientific research.
Subsequent patterns are also experienced with prior knowledge of the mechanism.