The 60-Second Attention Test
Tap the panel the moment it turns green.
Ten rounds. The last five come with notifications.
How this test works
This is a shortened psychomotor vigilance task, the standard laboratory measure of sustained attention, developed by David Dinges and John Powell in 1985. A signal appears at unpredictable intervals between 1.6 and 4.2 seconds and you respond as fast as you can. Ten trials run in total: five in silence to establish your baseline, then five while the page generates notification banners with sound. Your score combines median reaction time, the spread between your fastest and slowest responses, responses made before the signal appeared, and lapses, counted as responses slower than 500 milliseconds or taps on a banner. Mistakes are capped in total, so a clumsy run scores low rather than collapsing to nothing. A score of zero means no trial was answered at all.
What it can and cannot tell you
A browser cannot match laboratory timing. Your display refresh rate, input hardware, and current browser load all add delay that this page does not measure and cannot subtract, so the absolute milliseconds run slower than a lab would record. The comparison between your own two halves is the number worth reading, because both halves carry the same device penalty. A single 60 second run also captures one moment: sleep, caffeine, and time of day move these numbers substantially. This is a demonstration of a real effect, not a measurement of you.
This is not a medical or diagnostic instrument. It does not screen for ADHD or any other condition. If focus problems are affecting your work or your life, speak to a qualified professional.
Common questions
What is a psychomotor vigilance task?
A psychomotor vigilance task, or PVT, is the standard laboratory measure of sustained attention. A signal appears at unpredictable intervals and you respond as fast as you can. Reaction time and the number of lapses reveal how well attention is being sustained. It was developed by David Dinges and John Powell in 1985 and is widely used in sleep and fatigue research because it is simple and resistant to practice effects. This version is shortened and runs in a browser, which makes it a demonstration rather than a laboratory instrument.
What is a normal reaction time?
On a laboratory PVT, alert adults typically respond in roughly 200 to 300 milliseconds to a simple visual signal. Responses slower than 500 milliseconds are conventionally counted as lapses of attention. Browser measurements run slower than laboratory ones because display refresh, input handling, and your hardware all add delay, so treat the comparison between your own two halves of this test as the meaningful number rather than the absolute milliseconds.
Why does the second half add notifications?
Because the interesting measurement is not how fast you react in silence. It is how much slower you get when the environment behaves like a normal working day. The second half generates the delta figure, which is your own personal cost of distraction, measured on your own reflexes rather than quoted from a study.
Is this a test for ADHD?
No. This is not a diagnostic or medical instrument and it cannot screen for ADHD or any other condition. A single 60 second browser test measures a narrow slice of attention on one occasion, and results vary with sleep, caffeine, time of day, and hardware. If focus problems are affecting your work or your life, speak to a qualified professional.
Are the notifications real?
No. Every banner and every notification sound is generated by this page. Nothing is connected to your accounts, no messages are read or sent, and nothing you do here leaves your browser. You can mute the sound before you start, though the noise is part of what the second half is measuring.
Last updated 28 August 2026
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