Quick Glance
A critter flashes on the stump and its twin in a bush, then both hide. Tap where the twin was.
How to play
- Keep your eyes on the tree stump in the middle.
- A critter flashes on the stump, and at the same moment its twin flashes in one of the bushes.
- Other bushes hold other critters, and as it gets harder some are the same kind in a different colour — only the exact match counts.
- When everything hides, tap the bush where the twin was.
- A run of right answers makes the glances quicker and a miss makes them slower. Twenty glances make a session.
What it trains
- Taking in the middle and the edges of a scene in the same split second
- Picking out the one match in a crowd of lookalikes
- Glances that speed up or slow down with your answers, so each session sits at the edge of what you can catch
Quick Glance is a game about how much you can take in with one look. Keep your eyes on the tree stump: for a moment a critter appears on it, and at the same instant its twin pops up in one of the bushes around the stump, among other critters. Then the leaves rustle, everything is gone, and you tap the bush where the twin was. Keep getting them right and the glances get shorter and the crowd bigger; miss one and it slows down again. Twenty glances take about two minutes.
The science behind it
Peer-reviewed studies this exercise draws on.
- Effects of cognitive training interventions with older adults: A randomized controlled trial Ball, Berch, Helmers, Jobe, Leveck, Marsiske et al. (2002). JAMA, 288(18), 2271–2281.
- Ten-year effects of the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly cognitive training trial on cognition and everyday functioning in older adults Rebok, Ball, Guey, Jones, Kim, King et al. (2014). Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 62(1), 16–24.
Got thoughts on this? Tell us — it's anonymous, and every message is read.