Processing Speed
Quick Circles Game
Also called: tapping game, touch reaction time game, reaction time game for older adults
Measure tap times in older adults: orange circles and blue squares appear one at a time at different places, and the player taps each circle and leaves the squares alone, scored as the median tap time.
3-5 minTimed: desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad
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- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 417
- Evidence grade
- A
- Registered clinical studies
- 210
Figures for the Simple Reaction Time test, the published test this game is compared with.
How these are countedWhat it measures
A timed tapping game for research on processing speed in older adults. Orange circles and blue squares appear one at a time at different places. The player taps each circle and leaves the squares alone. Scores report the median tap time on circles, missed circles and taps on squares. They are raw research measures with no percentile.
Constructs
- Processing speed
- Reaction time to touch
- Response inhibition (secondary)
Research uses
- Research on processing speed in older adults, in clinics and in acute care
How the paradigm works
The Quick Circles Game is a timed tapping game for research on processing speed in older adults. Orange circles and blue squares appear one at a time at one of nine places on the screen. The player taps each circle and leaves the squares alone. The design follows the tapping game of Tong and colleagues (2016), in which targets appeared at varying times and places on a go/no-go design and emergency patients aged 70 to 94 tapped with a median response time of 0.9 seconds. The shapes, words and looks here are our own, and no place is drawn before a shape appears.
More about the paradigm
The paper counts and grades on this page are those of the Simple Reaction Time test, the published test the game is compared with, not the game's own. A practice of 6 trials comes first: a tapped circle lights up and a tapped square fades, and the practice runs once more when fewer than 4 of the 6 are right. The game has 60 trials in two blocks of 30 with a rest between them, and no feedback. Each shape appears after a wait of 800 to 1,600 ms and stays until it is tapped, or for 3,000 ms. One trial in five is a square. These counts and timings are our own choice. The game has two looks: a game look with a small face on each shape and a soft background, and a plain look with the shapes on white. Both looks draw each shape at the same size, color, place and timing, and the researcher chooses the look when adding the game to a study.
Scores
- Median Tap Timems
- Median time from a circle's appearance to the tap on it, over the circle trials tapped and scored.
- Lower means faster taps; compared within a study
- Taps on Squarescount
- Square trials where the square was tapped.
- Secondary: fewer means the squares were left alone more often
- Missed Circlescount
- Circle trials with no tap within 3,000 ms.
- Quality check
- Usable Trialstrials
- Test trials counted in the scores. Left out: trials the screen was left during, trials when the window changed size, and trials when a second finger or a palm touched the screen.
- Quality check
Use and evidence
417 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, down 21% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 66 of 582 test families in our census. These counts belong to the Simple Reaction Time test, the published test this game is compared with. This game is a new measure, so its own reliability and norms come from use. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 102 |
| 2024 | 86 |
| 2023 | 68 |
| 2022 | 73 |
| 2021 | 88 |
| 2020 | 88 |
| 2019 | 137 |
| 2018 | 102 |
| 2017 | 105 |
| 2016 | 98 |
| 2015 | 115 |
| 2014 | 110 |
| 2013 | 112 |
| 2012 | 88 |
| 2011 | 75 |
| 2010 | 91 |
| 2009 | 82 |
| 2008 | 80 |
| 2007 | 63 |
| 2006 | 83 |
| 2005 | 68 |
| 2004 | 58 |
| 2003 | 67 |
| 2002 | 54 |
| 2001 | 55 |
| 2000 | 40 |
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
- 31
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 198
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 210
Measured on ConductCognition
Pooled across the studies that feed our platform norms, by device group. A figure needs 50 or more people.
No pooled figure yet.
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 the Simple Reaction Time test, the published test this game is compared with, not the game's own.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.39.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Shapes
- An orange circle to tap and a blue square with rounded corners to leave alone, both with the same dark edge. The game look adds one small face to each shape and a soft background; the plain look shows the shapes on white. Both looks draw each shape at the same size, color, place and timing.
- Places
- Nine places scattered over the screen, worked out from the window before each trial. No place is drawn before a shape appears. Each shape is at least 64 px, and no place comes twice in a row.
- Trial
- After a wait of 800 to 1,600 ms, a shape appears and stays until it is tapped, or for 3,000 ms. A tap before the shape appears, or sooner than 100 ms after it appears, is not an answer, and a second tap changes nothing.
- Test
- 60 trials in 2 blocks of 30, with a rest between blocks: 48 circles and 12 squares, 6 squares in each block. A block never begins with a square and never has more than 2 in a row. The order comes from the session's seed, and there is no feedback.
- Practice
- 4 circles and 2 squares: a tapped circle lights up and a tapped square fades. The practice runs once more when fewer than 4 of its 6 are right.
- Scores
- The median tap time on circles (the main score), the taps on squares, the missed circles and the number of usable trials. A trial is left out when the screen was left during it, when the window changed size, or when a second finger or a palm touched the screen.
The design follows the tapping game of Tong and colleagues (2016); the shapes, words and looks are our own. This is a new measure for research with older adults: its reliability and norms come from use, the figures published in that study are not its own, and it computes no percentiles. For a retest 7 to 28 days later, add a second visit to the same study.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: quick_circles_game test trials, leaving out a trial during which the tab was hidden or the window changed size, and one in which a second finger or a palm touched the screen: tap the orange circle within 3 seconds and leave the blue square alone (one trial in five). No taps at all, taps mainly on the square, fewer than half the scored circles tapped, or fewer than 48 of 60 scored trials invalidates. Tapping the squares as often as the circles is flagged. An unbroken run of missed circles covering half of them withholds the percentile.
Why these rules
Accuracy against chance does not apply because leaving the square alone is correct on one trial in five. Responses concentrated on trials that needed none (one-sided Fisher exact test, p < .05) mean the instructions were reversed and invalidate; responses that do not separate the two trial types are flagged. A missed circle is part of what the game measures in older adults, so the platform's missed-response limit does not apply. A tap under 100 ms after a shape appears is never counted as an answer, so the 100 ms rule has nothing to check. A trial with a second contact is left out, because palm contact gave taps that the software of Tong and colleagues (2016) could not tell from intended ones. A session that tapped fewer than half the circles was not played, and fewer than 48 scored trials of 60 is too few to score; both limits are ConductScience choices, not published ones. An unbroken run of missed circles covering half of them may mean the person stopped, so it is flagged and the percentile withheld.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Look | Game | Game, Plain |
Every plan can change the look, which never changes how a result is scored.
Need a setting this test does not have?
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 Quick Circles Game in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Tong and colleagues, 2016), with the standard settings (look: Game). The main score was median tap time (median time from a circle's appearance to the tap on it, over the circle trials tapped and scored).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Tong, T., Chignell, M., Tierney, M. C., & Lee, J. (2016). A serious game for clinical assessment of cognitive status: Validation study. JMIR Serious Games, 4(1), e7. https://doi.org/10.2196/games.5006The design of a touch game whose targets appear at varying times and places on a go/no-go design, played on a 10-inch tablet by emergency patients aged 70 to 94 with a median response time of 0.9 seconds, and the finding that palm contact gave taps the software could not tell from intended ones.
Source papers
Questions
How long does the Quick Circles Game take?
About 3 to 5 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?
Median Tap Time, Taps on Squares, Missed Circles and Usable Trials. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Simple Reaction Time test used in research?
These counts belong to the Simple Reaction Time test, the published test this game is compared with. This game is a new measure, so its own reliability and norms come from use. 417 papers from 2021 to 2025 name the task in their title or abstract, down 21% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 66 of 582 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade B). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.39.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Simple Reaction Time test have?
These counts belong to the Simple Reaction Time test, the published test this game is compared with. This game is a new measure, so its own reliability and norms come from use. In the published research, 31 papers report the task's test-retest reliability and 210 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 settings can a researcher change?
Look (Game, Plain). Every plan can change the look, which never changes how a result is scored.
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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