Processing Speed
Gap Detection Task
Also called: gap detection threshold, auditory gap detection, temporal gap detection, silent gap detection, auditory temporal resolution task
Measure auditory temporal resolution: the shortest silent gap in a burst of noise that people can hear, at fixed gap lengths, with headphones.
6-9 minUntimed
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
- 231
- Evidence grade
- B
- Registered clinical studies
- 7
What it measures
Measures how short a silence people can hear. Participants hear two bursts of noise and choose the one with a brief silent gap, at eight gap lengths from 1 to 16 ms. The main score is the gap threshold, the gap at which 75 percent of answers are right.
Constructs
- Auditory temporal resolution
- Gap detection
- Auditory processing speed
Research uses
- Auditory perception research
- Aging and development research
- Within-study group comparison
How the paradigm works
The gap detection task measures auditory temporal resolution: the shortest silence in a sound a person can hear (Plomp, 1964; Fitzgibbons and Wightman, 1982). It needs headphones and normal hearing. The test starts with the sound setup: the participant turns the device's volume until a steady tone is comfortable, and a six-trial headphone check (Woods, Siegel, Traer and McDermott, 2017) confirms that headphones are in use. By default a failed check ends the test, and the check's result is saved either way.
More about the paradigm
On each trial the participant presses Play and hears two bursts of white noise, 400 ms each and 500 ms apart. One of them, the first or the second on half the trials at every gap, has a silent gap at its center; the other is unbroken, and both last 400 ms, so only the gap tells them apart. The participant chooses the burst with the gap, with no time limit. Eight gaps run from 1 to 16 ms in equal steps on a log scale (1.0, 1.5, 2.2, 3.3, 4.9, 7.2, 10.8 and 16.0 ms), each 12 times (8 to 20 as a setting), in runs that hold every gap once, in an order drawn from the session's seed: 96 trials at the standard settings. Six practice trials at the two longest gaps give feedback; the test gives none, and no answer changes the gaps that follow (the method of constant stimuli). A gap is measured between the half-amplitude points of 0.5 ms ramps, and every edge of the noise has the same ramps. The browser makes the noise at a fixed level, 10 dB below the volume-setting tone, and starts every sound on the audio clock's sample grid; the output delay the device reports is saved.
The main score is the gap threshold: the gap at which 75 percent of answers are right, from a two-choice Weibull function fitted to the share right at each gap by maximum likelihood. Listeners with normal hearing detect gaps of about 2 ms in wideband noise in the laboratory (Shailer and Moore, 1983; Gold and colleagues, 2015). Thresholds measured at home on participants' own devices ran higher than in the laboratory (Lelo de Larrea-Mancera and colleagues, 2022), and headphones differ, so compare sessions run the same way. The test does not measure or screen hearing: scores are research measures and do not diagnose.
Scores
- Gap Thresholdms
- Gap at which the fitted Weibull function reaches 75 percent right.
- Lower means a shorter gap was heard
- Psychometric Slopescore
- Slope of the fitted Weibull function.
- Higher means accuracy rose more steeply with the gap
- Lapse Rate%
- Fitted share of errors on gaps long enough to hear.
- Lower means fewer lapses
- Accuracy%
- Share of usable answers that named the burst with the gap.
- Higher is better; guessing gives 0.5
- Accuracy by Gap%
- Share right at each gap, keyed by the gap in ms.
- Rises with the gap
- Accuracy, Gap in the First Burst%
- Share right when the gap was in the first burst.
- Informational
- Accuracy, Gap in the Second Burst%
- Share right when the gap was in the second burst.
- Informational
- First Burst Answers%
- Share of usable answers that named the first burst.
- 0.5 means no lean toward either burst
- Median Answer Timems
- Median time from when the answers opened, after both bursts, to the answer.
- Informational; the answer has no time limit
- Anticipationscount
- Answers within 100 ms of the answers opening, which leave the score.
- Half or more of the answers makes the session invalid
- Completed Trialstrials
- Trials answered in the scored run.
- Fewer than planned is flagged for review
- Planned Trialstrials
- Trials the run set out to play.
- Informational
- Headphone Check Passed0/1
- 1 when the headphone check passed (at least 5 of 6 right), 0 when it did not.
- 0 stops the test unless the study set it to continue
- Headphone Check Correctcount
- Headphone check trials answered right, of 6.
- 5 or 6 passes
- Reported Output Delayms
- Output delay the device reported to the browser; empty when the browser does not report it.
- Informational
Use and evidence
231 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, up 1% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 109 of 395 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 49 |
| 2024 | 45 |
| 2023 | 45 |
| 2022 | 49 |
| 2021 | 43 |
| 2020 | 52 |
| 2019 | 50 |
| 2018 | 37 |
| 2017 | 47 |
| 2016 | 42 |
| 2015 | 62 |
| 2014 | 54 |
| 2013 | 37 |
| 2012 | 33 |
| 2011 | 27 |
| 2010 | 37 |
| 2009 | 41 |
| 2008 | 21 |
| 2007 | 14 |
| 2006 | 21 |
| 2005 | 15 |
| 2004 | 17 |
| 2003 | 10 |
| 2002 | 10 |
| 2001 | 14 |
| 2000 | 8 |
Use grade C
100 to 299 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade B
At least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 16
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 88
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 7
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 2 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Sound setup
- The participant turns the device's volume until a steady 1 kHz tone is comfortable, then takes a 6-trial headphone check (Woods and colleagues, 2017). By default a failed check ends the test; its result is saved either way.
- Trial
- Press Play to hear two bursts of white noise, 400 ms each and 500 ms apart. One has a silent gap at its center and the other is unbroken; both last 400 ms. Choose First or Second for the one with the gap, with no time limit.
- Gaps
- Eight gaps from 1 to 16 ms in equal steps on a log scale: 1, 1.5, 2.2, 3.3, 4.9, 7.2, 10.8 and 16 ms, measured between the half-amplitude points of 0.5 ms ramps.
- Trials
- Each gap 12 times (standard, 8 to 20), in runs that hold every gap once, in an order drawn from the session's seed, with the gap in each burst on half the trials at every gap: 96 trials, with no feedback.
- Practice
- 6 trials at the two longest gaps, with feedback for 1,000 ms.
- Fixed levels
- Every gap is set before the session, and no answer changes the next one: there is no staircase. The browser makes the noise 10 dB below the volume-setting tone and starts it on the audio clock's sample grid; the output delay the device reports is saved.
- Score
- The gap at which 75 percent of answers are right, from the random dot motion task's two-choice Weibull, fitted by maximum likelihood to the share right at each gap. Answers under 100 ms leave the score.
Gap thresholds depend on the noise, its level, the headphones and the procedure, and they ran higher on participants' own devices at home than in the laboratory, so compare them within studies run the same way. The test needs normal hearing and headphones, wired if possible, and it does not measure or screen hearing. The scores support research and do not diagnose.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: gap_detection_test from the scored run, a button for the first or the second burst of noise after both have played, with no time limit (chance 50%; the gap is in each burst on half the trials at every gap), graded from the saved button and the burst that held the gap. Below chance invalidates and not above chance is flagged; one button on 90% of answers invalidates when accuracy is not above chance; answers under 100 ms invalidate when they are at least half. A headphone check that stopped the test invalidates; a failed check with the test run anyway, no fitted gap threshold, or a run short of its planned trials 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). The answers open once both sounds have played and have no time limit, so an answer under 100 ms was pressed before they opened, and only a session made mostly of such answers is invalid. A failed headphone check that stopped the test leaves no trials to score (Woods, Siegel, Traer and McDermott, 2017). A threshold outside the gaps played cannot be estimated from them.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| When the headphone check fails | Stop the test | Stop the test, Continue the test |
| Trials per gap | 12 | 8 to 20 |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Needs headphones. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Gap Detection Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Plomp, 1964; Shailer and Moore, 1983), with the standard settings (when the headphone check fails: Stop the test; trials per gap: 12). The main score was gap threshold (gap at which the fitted Weibull function reaches 75 percent right).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Plomp, R. (1964). Rate of decay of auditory sensation. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 36(2), 277-282. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1918946Silent gaps in noise as a measure of auditory temporal resolution.
- Fitzgibbons, P. J., & Wightman, F. L. (1982). Gap detection in normal and hearing-impaired listeners. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 72(3), 761-765. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.388256The minimum detectable gap between two sounds as the measure.
- Shailer, M. J., & Moore, B. C. J. (1983). Gap detection as a function of frequency, bandwidth, and level. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 74(2), 467-473. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.389812A gap threshold of 2.3 ms in wideband noise, with no further change once the noise is well above threshold.
- He, N., Horwitz, A. R., Dubno, J. R., & Mills, J. H. (1999). Psychometric functions for gap detection in noise measured from young and aged subjects. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106(2), 966-978. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.427109Steep psychometric functions for gaps in wideband noise; the gap's position matters little away from the noise's onset and offset.
- Gold, J. R., Nodal, F. R., Peters, F., King, A. J., & Bajo, V. M. (2015). Auditory gap-in-noise detection behavior in ferrets and humans. Behavioral Neuroscience, 129(4), 473-490. https://doi.org/10.1037/bne0000065Fixed gap lengths in 400 ms of broadband noise, with a fitted psychometric function.
- Soranzo, A., & Grassi, M. (2014). PSYCHOACOUSTICS: A comprehensive MATLAB toolbox for auditory testing. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 712. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00712A gap at the center of white noise with 0.5 ms cosine ramps.
- Woods, K. J. P., Siegel, M. H., Traer, J., & McDermott, J. H. (2017). Headphone screening to facilitate web-based auditory experiments. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 79(7), 2064-2072. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1361-2The headphone check before the test.
- Lelo de Larrea-Mancera, E. S., Stavropoulos, T., Carrillo, A. A., Cheung, S., He, Y. J., Eddins, D. A., Molis, M. R., Gallun, F. J., & Seitz, A. R. (2022). Remote auditory assessment using Portable Automated Rapid Testing (PART) and participant-owned devices. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 152(2), 807-819. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0013221Gap thresholds measured at home on participants' own devices ran higher than in the laboratory.
Source papers
- Shailer and Moore (1983): a gap threshold of 2.3 ms in wideband noise. Gold and colleagues (2015): 2.15 ms in broadband noise at fixed gap lengths. Lelo de Larrea-Mancera and colleagues (2022): higher gap thresholds at home on participants' own devices than in the laboratory.Paradigm source, Adults
Questions
How long does the Gap Detection Task take?
About 6 to 9 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Needs headphones. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Gap Threshold, Psychometric Slope, Lapse Rate, Accuracy, Accuracy by Gap, Accuracy, Gap in the First Burst, Accuracy, Gap in the Second Burst, First Burst Answers, Median Answer Time, Anticipations, Completed Trials, Planned Trials, Headphone Check Passed, Headphone Check Correct and Reported Output Delay. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Gap Detection Task used in research?
231 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, up 1% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 109 of 395 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade C). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 2 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Gap Detection Task have?
In the published research, 16 papers report its test-retest reliability and 7 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade B in the ConductCognition test census).
Which settings can a researcher change?
When the headphone check fails (Stop the test, Continue the test) and trials per gap (8 to 20). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
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.
Run this test in your next study
Start free with 10 free participants on any test, then use participant credits or a yearly plan.