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24 words: for each one, pick the colour of the ink. About a minute.
24 words: for each one, pick the colour of the ink. About a minute.
The procrastination test shows what holds you back the most: boredom, worry about the result, or distraction.
Start the procrastination testThe game is built on an effect the psychologist John Ridley Stroop described in 1935: when the word “blue” is printed in red, naming the colour of the ink takes longer than when the word and the colour match. For adults, reading is so automatic that the brain reads the word before you want it to, and only then deals with the colour.
You play 24 rounds. In half of them the word matches its colour, in the other half it does not, in random order. The result is the time per correct answer: the average time of your correct answers divided by the share of correct answers. Fast guessing does not pay, every mistake pushes the number up.
It is a short game of attention and focus, not a psychological test. The comparison with other players is a rough guide.
The main number is the time per correct answer in milliseconds, so lower is better. If you answer all 24 words correctly, it is simply your average response time. Every mistake or unanswered word pushes the number up: 20 correct out of 24 at the same speed gives a result one fifth higher.
Below the main number you will find your accuracy and the colour delay, that is how much longer your correct answers took for words where the word and the colour did not match than for words where they did. A positive number is normal, almost everyone has the Stroop effect. A difference of a few dozen milliseconds between two games is normal spread. The bands in the table are provisional for now, treat them as a rough split, not as a norm.
| ms | ||
|---|---|---|
| Excellent | ≤ 650 | Fast and accurate answers, even for words where the colour does not match the word. |
| Fast | 651-800 | Fast answers, almost no mistakes. |
| Average | 801-1000 | The middle band. The colour slows you down now and then, or a mistake slips in. |
| Slower | > 1000 | A slower time. Mistakes, a touchscreen or distractions around you may be behind it. |
The controls count towards the time too. On a computer, answering with the keys 1 to 4 is usually faster than with a mouse, and on a phone it depends on how far your thumb is from the buttons. Tiredness, noise around you and whether it is your first game also play a part: the first time, your hand is still finding where each button is.
While playing it pays to see the word as a patch of colour and not read it, but that is exactly what the brain resists. And compare mostly your own games on the same device, otherwise you are measuring the controls rather than your focus.
The delay that appears when a word and the colour of its ink do not match. For adults reading is automatic, so the brain reads the word before it names the colour, and the answer comes a little later. It was described by the psychologist John Ridley Stroop in 1935.
There is no published norm for this game. The bands next to the result are a provisional rough split, and the percentile shows a rough comparison with other players on this site once there are enough of them.
A plain average could be gamed by guessing fast. The time per correct answer is the average time of the correct answers divided by the share of correct answers, so every mistake makes the result worse and it pays to answer both fast and accurately.
You have three seconds for each word. A word without an answer counts as a mistake and the game moves on to the next one. If not a single answer is correct, we do not save the result.
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Read moreThe bands next to your result come from fixed thresholds that are the same for every player. The percentile is calculated from the scores of other players on this site, not from published norms, and it only appears once enough runs have been stored. The typing test has its own comparison for each language version, because the word pools differ. For the other games we pool all languages together.
Measuring conditions differ from person to person: a different mouse, a different screen, a different level of focus. So treat the comparison with others as a rough guide. The most useful number is your own history of recent attempts, which sits right next to the result.
These games are for practice and rough comparison. They are not psychological or medical diagnostics, and the result says nothing about your intelligence or your health.
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