Attention
Food-Picture Dot-Probe Task
Also called: food dot probe task, visual probe task with food pictures
Measure attentional bias toward food with food and object picture pairs shown for 3 seconds, calorie blocks, and trimmed response-time bias scores.
10-12 minTimed: desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Preview any test free after you sign up.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 608
- Evidence grade
- A
- Registered clinical studies
- 148
What it measures
Measures whether attention is drawn toward food. A food picture and a non-food picture appear side by side for 3 seconds, then a dot replaces one of them and participants press the left or right arrow for its side.
Constructs
- Attentional bias to food
- Selective attention
- Food cue reactivity
Research uses
- Eating behavior and appetite research at the group level
- Obesity and nutrition studies
- Within-study comparison of high- and low-calorie food cues
How the paradigm works
The food-picture dot-probe measures whether attention is drawn toward food. After a 500 ms cross, a food picture and a non-food picture appear side by side for 3,000 ms. A dot then appears where one of the pictures was, and participants press the left or right arrow for its side as quickly as they can. The dot stays until a response.
More about the paradigm
The design follows van Ens et al. (2019): 30 picture pairs, each shown 4 times, give 120 test trials in two blocks of 60 after 16 practice trials. Twenty critical pairs put a food next to a non-food object, 10 with high-calorie foods (pastries, cookies, chocolate, fries and pizza) and 10 with low-calorie foods (fruit); 10 filler pairs show two objects. One block holds the high-calorie pairs and the other the low-calorie pairs, each with 5 filler pairs, in a random block order for each participant. Each critical pair appears once in each combination of food side and dot side. Practice uses 4 object pairs that the test does not show. The pictures come from the CROCUFID database (Toet et al., 2019): the foods with the highest desire-to-eat ratings from its US raters, each paired with an everyday object of similar brightness and color. CROCUFID gives no calorie values, so foods were sorted into the two calorie groups by type.
The attentional bias score is the mean response time when the dot replaced the non-food picture minus the mean when it replaced the food picture, on correct critical trials. As in van Ens et al. (2019), responses under 200 ms or over 2,000 ms are removed, then responses more than 3 standard deviations above the participant's mean. Positive values mean attention was drawn to food. Separate scores are given for high- and low-calorie pairs, and for odd and even critical trials so a study can report the split-half reliability of the bias score. The task runs on a desktop or laptop with a physical keyboard.
Scores
- Attentional Bias to Foodms
- Mean response time when the dot replaced the non-food picture minus when it replaced the food picture, on correct critical trials after trimming.
- Positive values mean attention was drawn to food
- Food-Side RTms
- Mean correct response time when the dot replaced the food picture, after trimming.
- Lower is faster
- Object-Side RTms
- Mean correct response time when the dot replaced the non-food picture, after trimming.
- Lower is faster
- High-Calorie Biasms
- The bias score from the pairs with high-calorie foods.
- Positive values mean attention was drawn to high-calorie food
- Low-Calorie Biasms
- The bias score from the pairs with low-calorie foods.
- Positive values mean attention was drawn to low-calorie food
- Filler RTms
- Mean correct response time on the filler pairs of two objects.
- Lower is faster
- Accuracy%
- Share of all test trials answered with the dot's side.
- Higher is better
- Valid Critical Trialstrials
- Correct critical trials kept after trimming, out of 80.
- More trials give a steadier bias score
- Bias, Odd Trialsms
- The bias score from odd-numbered critical trials.
- For split-half reliability across a study
- Bias, Even Trialsms
- The bias score from even-numbered critical trials.
- For split-half reliability across a study
Use and evidence
608 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, down 19% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 38 of 395 test families in our census. The counts cover every version of the task, so the Dot-Probe Task page shows the same figures. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 152 |
| 2024 | 92 |
| 2023 | 102 |
| 2022 | 132 |
| 2021 | 130 |
| 2020 | 120 |
| 2019 | 145 |
| 2018 | 177 |
| 2017 | 140 |
| 2016 | 169 |
| 2015 | 162 |
| 2014 | 148 |
| 2013 | 130 |
| 2012 | 103 |
| 2011 | 111 |
| 2010 | 99 |
| 2009 | 64 |
| 2008 | 62 |
| 2007 | 42 |
| 2006 | 32 |
| 2005 | 31 |
| 2004 | 27 |
| 2003 | 22 |
| 2002 | 12 |
| 2001 | 6 |
| 2000 | 8 |
Use grade B
300 to 999 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade A
At least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 36
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 230
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 148
How the grades work
Use: A is 1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025, B 300 to 999, C 100 to 299, D 30 to 99 and E fewer than 30. Evidence: A means at least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome; B, at least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers; C, at least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies; D, little published measurement evidence found. The counts measure use. They include every paper that names the task in its title or abstract. Grades describe the published research on this task, not ConductCognition's version of it.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: food_dot_probe_test from the scored run, left or right arrow for the dot's side (chance 50%, the dot is on the left on half the trials); the dot stays until a key is pressed. Below chance invalidates and not above chance is flagged. One key on 90% of answers invalidates when accuracy is not above chance. Responses under 100 ms follow the timed-test rule. A mean picture-display timing error above 20 ms, or fewer than half of the food trials usable after errors and trimming, is flagged for review.
Why these rules
Accuracy significantly below chance (one-sided exact test, p < .05) cannot come from guessing; it means the response mapping was reversed or the task was not followed (Slick, Sherman and Iverson 1999 treat below-chance forced-choice performance as definite response bias). Chance-level accuracy can be a real result in impaired participants, so it is only flagged. One option on at least 90% of answered trials, when the correct options are balanced and accuracy is not above chance, means the answers did not depend on the items (the task counterpart of long-string responding in surveys; Curran 2016). Missed responses and responses under 100 ms keep the platform's timed-test rule: more than max(3, 25%) missed responses or more than max(2, 20%) responses under 100 ms invalidate, and any is flagged. A response under 100 ms cannot be a reaction to the stimulus. The bias score compares response times after 3,000 ms picture displays, so a display that could not hold that time changes the measure, and a bias from few trials is unreliable.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
This test runs with fixed settings.
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Devices and languages
- Timed test: participants need a desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- No percentile. Scores and quality flags only. How norms work
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Food-Picture Dot-Probe task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; van Ens et al., 2019). The main score was attentional bias to food (mean response time when the dot replaced the non-food picture minus when it replaced the food picture, on correct critical trials after trimming).
Paradigm source: van Ens et al. (2019).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
Source papers
- van Ens W, Schmidt U, Campbell IC, Roefs A, Werthmann J (2019). Test-retest reliability of attention bias for food: Robust eye-tracking and reaction time indices. Appetite, 136:86-92.Paradigm source, Adults
- Toet A, Kaneko D, de Kruijf I, Ushiama S, van Schaik MG, Brouwer AM, Kallen V, van Erp JBF (2019). CROCUFID: A cross-cultural food image database for research on food elicited affective responses. Frontiers in Psychology, 10:58.Paradigm source, Adults
- No normative data for this task.Paradigm source, N/A
Questions
How long does the Food-Picture Dot-Probe Task take?
About 10 to 12 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Timed test: participants need a desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Attentional Bias to Food, Food-Side RT, Object-Side RT, High-Calorie Bias, Low-Calorie Bias, Filler RT, Accuracy, Valid Critical Trials, Bias, Odd Trials and Bias, Even Trials. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Food-Picture Dot-Probe Task used in research?
608 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, down 19% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 38 of 395 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade B). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Food-Picture Dot-Probe Task have?
In the published research, 36 papers report its test-retest reliability and 148 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade A in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which languages can participants use?
Participants can take this test in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese. English is on every plan, and the other languages come with yearly plans. Have a native speaker read the machine-translated text before launch.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
Every test: the full test list.
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