Posner cueing task
An arrow hints where a target will appear. When the hint is right you respond faster, which shows attention moving before your eyes do.
- Measures
- Spatial orienting of attention
- Template length
- about 4 minutes (40 trials)
You keep your eyes on the centre of the screen. An arrow points left or right, then an X appears on one side and you report which side. Most of the time the arrow points the right way (valid trials); sometimes it points the wrong way (invalid trials).
People respond faster on valid trials and slower on invalid ones, even without moving their eyes. That cueing effect was the first clean evidence that attention can shift on its own, ahead of the eyes.
Try it yourself
A shortened run of the same template researchers use. Nothing is recorded and you do not need an account.
How the task works
- 1A fixation cross appears for 500 ms.
- 2An arrow cue points left or right for 400 ms, followed by a 200 ms blank.
- 3An X appears on the left or right. Press F for left and J for right.
- 4The cue is valid on about 80% of trials.
What people usually find
Valid trials are faster than invalid ones. With a central arrow cue and a short delay the difference is typically a few tens of milliseconds.
With a cue that flashes at the location itself instead of an arrow, the benefit appears quickly and then reverses after about 300 ms: responses to the cued side become slower. This reversal is called inhibition of return.
How to score it
- Cueing (validity) effect: mean correct RT on invalid trials minus valid trials.
- Accuracy is usually near ceiling, so RT carries the effect.
Before you run it
- The template uses a central arrow, which tests voluntary (endogenous) orienting. Inhibition of return needs a peripheral cue and longer delays; the prompt below builds that version.
- Online you cannot check that people keep their eyes on the centre. Short cue-target delays (under about 200 ms) leave little time for an eye movement.
Run it as a study
Use the template as it is
The demo above is the same code as the Posner Cueing template in the gallery. Add it to a project, change the settings in config.js, publish it and share the link. Reaction times and responses come back to your dashboard.
Create a free account to use itOr build a variant: look for inhibition of return
Paste this into the AI panel in the experiment editor. Read the code it writes before you collect anything.
Build a spatial cueing task with peripheral cues. Two boxes sit left and right of a central fixation cross. On each trial one box brightens for 100 ms (the cue), then after a cue-target delay of 100, 400 or 800 ms an X appears in the cued or uncued box with equal probability. Respond with F for left and J for right. Use 240 trials with delays and cue validity fully crossed and randomised, plus 10% catch trials with no target where the participant should not respond. Record the delay and whether the cue was valid.
Common questions
What does the Posner cueing task measure?
How attention moves to a location in space, and how much it costs to move it back when it was sent to the wrong place.
What is inhibition of return?
After attention is drawn to a location by a sudden cue and then leaves it, responses to that location are slower for a while. It is thought to help search by discouraging attention from going back to places already checked.
Do I need an eye tracker?
Not for the basic effect. Labs that need to guarantee fixation use eye tracking; online, short cue-target delays and clear instructions are the usual compromise.