Language
Serial Naming Task
Also called: rapid automatized naming, RAN, rapid naming, naming speed task, rapid serial naming, serial naming speed, continuous naming
Measure naming speed, as in rapid automatized naming: participants name grids of colors, pictures, digits or letters aloud and press a key at the end of each row. No sound is recorded.
6-10 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. Try it here first, with no account.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 415
- Evidence grade
- C
- Registered clinical studies
- 22
What it measures
Measures naming speed, as in rapid automatized naming. Participants name grids of colors, pictures, digits or letters aloud and press the space bar at the end of each row. The score is the time per item. No sound is recorded, so the test cannot hear the names and errors are not scored.
Constructs
- Naming speed
- Rapid automatized naming
- Lexical access
- Processing speed
Research uses
- Reading and reading fluency research
- Research on reading across languages and scripts
- Within-study comparison of groups and conditions
How the paradigm works
The Serial Naming Task measures naming speed in the format of rapid automatized naming (RAN; Denckla and Rudel, 1974, 1976): people name a grid of familiar items aloud, row by row, as quickly as they can, and the time they take is the measure. Naming speed is closely related to reading, and most to reading fluency, across ages and languages (Norton and Wolf, 2012; Araújo and colleagues, 2015).
More about the paradigm
Each grid holds five rows of ten items of one kind, colors, pictures, digits or letters: five items, each ten times and twice in every row, in an order drawn from the session's seed with no item next to itself. The participant names the items aloud from left to right and presses SPACEBAR at the end of each row, while an arrow marks the row. Before a kind's first grid its five items are shown with their names, and a practice grid of two rows comes first. The standard session shows the four kinds in two rounds, eight grids in all.
The test records no sound: the microphone is not used, so it cannot hear the names, and errors are not scored. A wrong name or a pause is part of the time, as in the total time of the paper tasks. A row under 150 ms per item is too fast to have been named aloud and is left out. The primary score is the time per item over every grid; the time per item of each kind and the mean time of a whole grid of 50 items, the scale of the classic total naming time, are also given.
Scores
- Time Per Itemms/item
- Summed time of the timed rows over their items, every kind together.
- Lower is faster naming
- Time Per Colorms/item
- Time per item over the timed rows of the color grids; empty when the session showed none.
- Lower is faster naming
- Time Per Picturems/item
- Time per item over the timed rows of the picture grids; empty when the session showed none.
- Lower is faster naming
- Time Per Digitms/item
- Time per item over the timed rows of the digit grids; empty when the session showed none.
- Lower is faster naming
- Time Per Letterms/item
- Time per item over the timed rows of the letter grids; empty when the session showed none.
- Lower is faster naming
- Digits and Letters Time Per Itemms/item
- Time per item over the timed rows of the digit and letter grids.
- Lower is faster naming
- Colors and Pictures Time Per Itemms/item
- Time per item over the timed rows of the color and picture grids.
- Lower is faster naming
- Time Per Gridseconds
- Mean time to name a whole grid of 50 items, over the grids with every row timed.
- Lower is faster naming
- Median Row Timems
- Median time of the timed rows of ten items.
- Lower is faster naming
- Rows Too Fast To Namecount
- Rows under 150 ms per item, too fast to have been named aloud, left out of the times.
- More than max(2, 20%) of the rows invalidates; any is flagged
- Anticipationscount
- Rows ended under 100 ms after they were marked.
- Expected to be 0
- Rows Timedcount
- Rows that count in the times.
- Informational
- Planned Rowscount
- Rows in the session's grids.
- Informational
Use and evidence
415 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, up 28% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 66 of 495 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 103 |
| 2024 | 85 |
| 2023 | 69 |
| 2022 | 74 |
| 2021 | 84 |
| 2020 | 87 |
| 2019 | 70 |
| 2018 | 57 |
| 2017 | 61 |
| 2016 | 49 |
| 2015 | 65 |
| 2014 | 63 |
| 2013 | 48 |
| 2012 | 33 |
| 2011 | 38 |
| 2010 | 38 |
| 2009 | 30 |
| 2008 | 18 |
| 2007 | 15 |
| 2006 | 19 |
| 2005 | 13 |
| 2004 | 16 |
| 2003 | 12 |
| 2002 | 15 |
| 2001 | 6 |
| 2000 | 9 |
Use grade B
300 to 999 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade C
At least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 6
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 85
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 22
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 0.22.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Grids
- Five rows of ten items of one kind: five items, each ten times and twice in every row, in an order drawn from the session's seed with no item next to itself, also across the end of a row.
- Items
- Colors: red, blue, green, black and white discs. Pictures: a cat, a fish, a tree, an apple and an egg, from Noto Emoji. Digits: 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8. Letters: a, h, o, s and t. Each color and picture has one everyday name of at most three syllables in each of the eight languages.
- Naming
- The participant names the items aloud from left to right and presses SPACEBAR at the end of each row, while an arrow marks the row. A row's time runs from the arrow reaching it to the press.
- Session
- Before a kind's first grid, its five items with their names; a practice grid of 2 rows with its time; then 2 rounds of colors, pictures, digits and letters, 8 grids (standard). One round, or only some kinds, are settings.
- Recording
- None. The microphone is not used and no sound is recorded, so the test cannot hear the names, and errors are not scored.
- Score
- The time per item: the summed time of the timed rows over their items. A row under 150 ms per item is too fast to have been named aloud and is left out. Also each kind, digits and letters together, colors and pictures together, and the mean time of a whole grid of 50 items.
The test hears nothing: it times the presses, so a name said wrong, said silently or skipped is not caught. A wrong name or a pause is part of the time, as in the total time of the paper tasks. Rows too fast to have been named aloud are flagged, and more than max(2, 20%) of them invalidate. Names differ in length from language to language, so compare people who named in the same language. The items and grids were made for this test; no published rapid naming test's items or order are used. 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: serial_naming_row, one per row of the scored run's grids (practice excluded), timed from the row's display to SPACEBAR. A naming time has no chance level, and the test hears nothing, so errors are not counted. A row under 150 ms per item is too fast to have been named aloud: more than max(2, 20%) of the rows that fast invalidate, and any is flagged. A run short of its planned rows is flagged. A hidden tab withholds the percentile.
Why these rules
Speaking one item takes longer than 150 ms even at the fastest rate of speech, so a row that fast was ended without naming its items; the platform's timed-test proportion, more than max(2, 20%), invalidates. The test records no sound, so it cannot tell a name said aloud from one said silently or skipped. The rows are timed while the tab is hidden, so a hidden tab withholds the percentile.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Grids | Colors, pictures, digits and letters (standard) | Colors, pictures, digits and letters (standard), Digits and letters, Colors and pictures, Colors only, Pictures only, Digits only, Letters only |
| Grids of each kind | 2 (standard) | 1, 2 (standard) |
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
- 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 Serial Naming Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Denckla & Rudel, 1974, 1976; Norton & Wolf, 2012), with the standard settings (grids: Colors, pictures, digits and letters; grids of each kind: 2). The main score was time per item (summed time of the timed rows over their items, every kind together).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Denckla, M. B., & Rudel, R. (1974). Rapid "automatized" naming of pictured objects, colors, letters and numbers by normal children. Cortex, 10(2), 186-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(74)80009-2The task: naming arrays of objects, colors, letters and numbers as quickly as possible.
- Denckla, M. B., & Rudel, R. G. (1976). Rapid "automatized" naming (R.A.N.): Dyslexia differentiated from other learning disabilities. Neuropsychologia, 14(4), 471-479. https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(76)90075-0
- Norton, E. S., & Wolf, M. (2012). Rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading fluency: Implications for understanding and treatment of reading disabilities. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 427-452. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100431Naming speed and reading fluency across development, reading abilities and languages.
- Araújo, S., Reis, A., Petersson, K. M., & Faísca, L. (2015). Rapid automatized naming and reading performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3), 868-883. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000006Naming speed correlates with reading, more closely for digits and letters than for colors and pictures.
- Norton, E. S. (2020). What educators need to know about rapid automatized naming (RAN). LDA Bulletin, 52(1), 25-28. The format: 8 to 10 items per row in 4 or 5 rows, a set of 5 or 6 items, and the total time or the time per item as the score.
Source papers
- Denckla MB, Rudel RG (1976). Rapid "automatized" naming (R.A.N.): dyslexia differentiated from other learning disabilities. Neuropsychologia, 14(4):471-479.Paradigm source, Children
- Araújo S, Reis A, Petersson KM, Faísca L (2015). Rapid automatized naming and reading performance: a meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3):868-883.Paradigm source, Children and adults
Questions
How long does the Serial Naming Task take?
About 6 to 10 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?
Time Per Item, Time Per Color, Time Per Picture, Time Per Digit, Time Per Letter, Digits and Letters Time Per Item, Colors and Pictures Time Per Item, Time Per Grid, Median Row Time, Rows Too Fast To Name, Anticipations, Rows Timed and Planned Rows. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Serial Naming Task used in research?
415 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, up 28% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 66 of 495 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade B). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.22.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Serial Naming Task have?
In the published research, 6 papers report its test-retest reliability and 22 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade C in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which settings can a researcher change?
Grids (Colors, pictures, digits and letters (standard), Digits and letters, Colors and pictures, Colors only, Pictures only, Digits only, Letters only) and grids of each kind (1, 2 (standard)). 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, with its words in the same language. 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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