Attention
Tilt Aftereffect Task
Also called: tilt after-effect, TAE, orientation aftereffect, tilt adaptation
Measure how looking at tilted stripes changes what looks upright: people judge whether brief striped patches tilt left or right, before and after adapting to stripes tilted to each side.
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. Try it here first, with no account.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 66
- Evidence grade
- C
- Registered clinical studies
- 1
What it measures
A measure of how looking at tilted stripes changes what looks upright. A patch of stripes flashes briefly and participants press the left or right arrow for the way it tilted. The first part has no adapter; in the other two the circle first fills with stripes tilted 15 degrees to the left or to the right. The score is the shift in the tilt that looks upright after adaptation, in degrees.
Constructs
- Orientation perception
- Visual adaptation
- Perceived upright
Research uses
- Visual perception and adaptation research
- Individual differences in perception
- Within-study group comparison
How the paradigm works
The Tilt Aftereffect Task measures how looking at tilted stripes changes what looks upright (Gibson and Radner, 1937). After a person has looked for some seconds at stripes tilted to one side, upright stripes look tilted the other way, so a patch must lean toward the adapter to look upright. The effect is used to study how the visual system codes orientation and adapts to it (Pavan and colleagues, 2016; Mei and colleagues, 2021).
More about the paradigm
A gray circle with a red dot at its middle stays on screen, and patches of stripes in a soft-edged round window flash there for 50 ms (three frames of a 60 Hz screen), 250 ms after the adapter or the plain circle. The participant presses the left or right arrow for the way the stripes tilted, with no time limit. The tilts are 12, 9, 6 and 3 degrees to the left, upright, and 3, 6, 9 and 12 degrees to the right, each 4 times in each part (standard; 4 to 8), with 4 check patches 20 degrees to one side. The first part has no adapter. In the other two, in a seeded order, the circle first fills for 20 seconds with stripes tilted 15 degrees to the left or to the right and again for 4 seconds before every patch, its light and dark stripes trading places every 500 ms, after the design of Hussain Ismail and colleagues (2016). A 30 second rest comes before the last part. That gives 120 patches after 6 practice patches with feedback, about 10 to 12 minutes. Every tilt and display time is set before the session: no answer changes a later trial, and there is no staircase or training mode. Desktop and laptop only.
The main score is the tilt aftereffect: half the difference between the tilts that look upright after the right and after the left adapter, from a cumulative Gaussian fitted to the answers of each part, in degrees. Positive values are the classic effect, upright pushed away from the adapter; the person's own lean cancels out. The tilt that looks upright in each part, each adapter's shift from the part with no adapter and the spread of the answers with no adapter are also reported. Tilts are angles on the screen and need no screen calibration, but the stripes' size and spacing in degrees of visual angle depend on the screen and the viewing distance: compare groups on similar equipment. Answers near upright are the measure and are never counted as errors; the check patches show whether the keys followed the display. Scores support research and do not diagnose.
Scores
- Tilt Aftereffectdegrees
- Half the difference between the tilts that look upright after the right and after the left adapter, from a cumulative Gaussian fitted to each part's answers.
- Positive is the usual finding: upright pushed away from the adapter; not better or worse
- Upright With No Adapterdegrees
- The tilt that looks upright in the part with no adapter, positive to the right.
- Informational; near 0 for most people
- Upright After the Left Adapterdegrees
- The tilt that looks upright after stripes tilted 15 degrees to the left, positive to the right.
- Usually to the left of the upright with no adapter
- Upright After the Right Adapterdegrees
- The tilt that looks upright after stripes tilted 15 degrees to the right, positive to the right.
- Usually to the right of the upright with no adapter
- Shift After the Left Adapterdegrees
- The upright with no adapter minus the upright after the left adapter.
- Positive when upright moved toward the adapter's tilt, the usual finding
- Shift After the Right Adapterdegrees
- The upright after the right adapter minus the upright with no adapter.
- Positive when upright moved toward the adapter's tilt, the usual finding
- Spread With No Adapterdegrees
- Half the distance between the tilts called right on 25% and on 75% of patches in the part with no adapter, from the fitted curve.
- Smaller means finer judgments of tilt
- Right Answers With No Adapter%
- Share of "tilted right" answers at each tilt in the part with no adapter, keyed by degrees.
- Rises with the tilt
- Right Answers After the Left Adapter%
- Share of "tilted right" answers at each tilt after the left adapter, keyed by degrees.
- Usually higher than with no adapter near upright
- Right Answers After the Right Adapter%
- Share of "tilted right" answers at each tilt after the right adapter, keyed by degrees.
- Usually lower than with no adapter near upright
- Check Patch Accuracy%
- Share of the check patches, tilted 20 degrees to one side, answered right, when at least 4 were answered.
- Below 0.5 is invalid and below 0.75 is flagged for review
- Median Answer Timems
- Median time from the end of the patch to the answer.
- Informational; the answer has no time limit
- Anticipationscount
- Answers under 100 ms from the end of the patch, which are not scored.
- Lower is better
- Early Key Pressescount
- Arrow keys pressed before the patch ended, which are not taken as answers.
- Informational
- Frame Intervalms
- Median time between screen frames during the trials.
- About 16.7 on a 60 Hz screen
- Dropped Frames%
- Share of the frames the browser skipped while the adapter, the gray circle and the patches were shown.
- Above 0.05 is flagged for review
- Patch Durationms
- Median measured time the patches were on screen.
- About 50 on a 60 Hz screen
- Adapter Timeseconds
- Measured time the adapting stripes were on screen over the two adapting parts.
- Informational
- Completed Trialstrials
- Patches answered in the scored run.
- Fewer than planned is flagged for review
- Planned Trialstrials
- Patches the run set out to show.
- Informational
Use and evidence
66 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, down 48% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 272 of 495 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 14 |
| 2024 | 19 |
| 2023 | 11 |
| 2022 | 8 |
| 2021 | 14 |
| 2020 | 27 |
| 2019 | 19 |
| 2018 | 22 |
| 2017 | 34 |
| 2016 | 26 |
| 2015 | 24 |
| 2014 | 23 |
| 2013 | 24 |
| 2012 | 26 |
| 2011 | 24 |
| 2010 | 37 |
| 2009 | 15 |
| 2008 | 14 |
| 2007 | 11 |
| 2006 | 12 |
| 2005 | 9 |
| 2004 | 9 |
| 2003 | 13 |
| 2002 | 7 |
| 2001 | 6 |
| 2000 | 7 |
Use grade D
30 to 99 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
- 2
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 19
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 1
Note on the counts: includes tilt illusion papers.
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 3 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Display
- A gray circle 400 px across with a red dot at its middle, and stripes 30 px apart, light and dark, in a soft-edged round window 300 px across.
- Patch
- Stripes at a contrast of 0.5 for 50 ms (three frames of a 60 Hz screen), 250 ms after the adapter or the plain circle, at a seeded position.
- Tilts
- 12, 9, 6 or 3 degrees to the left, upright, or 3, 6, 9 or 12 degrees to the right, each 4 times in each part (standard; 4 to 8), and 4 check patches 20 degrees to one side.
- Adapter
- Stripes tilted 15 degrees to the left in one part and to the right in another, at a contrast of 0.9, for 20 seconds at the start of the part and 4 seconds before every patch; the light and dark stripes trade places every 500 ms.
- Parts
- First a part with no adapter, the plain circle for 1,000 ms before each patch, then the two adapting parts in a seeded order, with a 30 second rest before the last: 120 patches in all.
- Answer
- Press the left arrow if the stripes tilted to the left or the right arrow if they tilted to the right, with no time limit. Keys pressed before the patch ends are counted and not taken as answers.
- Practice
- 6 patches 20 degrees to one side with no adapter, with feedback for 1,000 ms.
- Fixed displays
- Every tilt, adapter and display time is set before the session, and no answer changes a later trial: there is no staircase and no training mode.
- Score
- Half the difference between the tilts that look upright after the right and after the left adapter, from a cumulative Gaussian fitted to each part's answers, in degrees; positive when upright is pushed away from the adapter. Answers under 100 ms leave the score.
Tilts are angles on the screen and need no screen calibration. The stripes are drawn in screen pixels, so their size and spacing in degrees of visual angle depend on the screen and the viewing distance: compare groups on similar equipment. Contrasts are nominal, for an sRGB display. Answers near upright are never scored as errors.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: tilt_aftereffect_test from the scored run, the left arrow when the patch tilted to the left or the right arrow when it tilted to the right, with no time limit. The tilts near upright are the measure: the adapters make some of them look tilted the other way, so accuracy is not judged on them and no answer to one is ever an error. Only the check patches, tilted 20 degrees, have a right answer: with at least 4 answered, under half right invalidates and under three quarters is flagged. Answer times run from the end of the patch; responses under 100 ms follow the timed-test rule. No aftereffect, a run short of its planned patches, or more than 5% of frames dropped is flagged for review.
Why these rules
There is no correct option to compare with chance, so accuracy is not judged against chance. After stripes tilted to one side, upright stripes look tilted the other way (Gibson and Radner, 1937), so a "wrong" answer near upright is the aftereffect itself. A patch tilted 20 degrees lies far beyond the aftereffects the sources report, so wrong answers there mean the keys did not follow the display. The adapter and the patch are timed in screen frames, so a display that dropped frames changed what was shown, and a hidden tab, which stops the adapter, withholds the percentile.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Patches at each tilt | 4 | 4 to 8 |
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 Tilt Aftereffect Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Gibson and Radner, 1937), with the standard settings (patches at each tilt: 4). The main score was tilt aftereffect (half the difference between the tilts that look upright after the right and after the left adapter, from a cumulative Gaussian fitted to each part's answers).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Gibson, J. J., & Radner, M. (1937). Adaptation, after-effect and contrast in the perception of tilted lines. I. Quantitative studies. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 20(5), 453-467. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0059826The aftereffect: after looking at a tilted line, an upright line in the same place looks tilted the other way.
- Hussain Ismail, A. M., Solomon, J. A., Hansard, M., & Mareschal, I. (2016). A tilt after-effect for images of buildings: evidence of selectivity for the orientation of everyday scenes. Royal Society Open Science, 3(11), 160551. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160551Parts with no adapter and with adapters 15 degrees each way, 20 seconds of adaptation and 5 seconds before each test, and repulsion as half the difference between the two adapted biases.
- Mei, G., Cen, M., Luo, X., Qiu, S., & Pan, Y. (2021). Working memory load effects on the tilt aftereffect. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 618712. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.618712Gratings tilted 15 degrees each way, a 40 ms test after a 300 ms gap, and aftereffects of about 3 to 4 degrees with the bias of a vertical adapter removed.
- Pavan, A., Hocketstaller, J., Contillo, A., & Greenlee, M. W. (2016). Tilt aftereffect following adaptation to translational Glass patterns. Scientific Reports, 6, 23567. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep23567A test grating flashed for 33 ms, because aftereffects are stronger with brief tests, and an aftereffect of about 7.6 degrees after a grating tilted 15 degrees.
Source papers
- Gibson JJ, Radner M (1937). Adaptation, after-effect and contrast in the perception of tilted lines. I. Quantitative studies. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 20(5):453-467.Paradigm source, Adults
- Hussain Ismail AM, Solomon JA, Hansard M, Mareschal I (2016). A tilt after-effect for images of buildings: evidence of selectivity for the orientation of everyday scenes. Royal Society Open Science, 3(11):160551.Paradigm source, Adults
Questions
How long does the Tilt Aftereffect 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?
Tilt Aftereffect, Upright With No Adapter, Upright After the Left Adapter, Upright After the Right Adapter, Shift After the Left Adapter, Shift After the Right Adapter, Spread With No Adapter, Right Answers With No Adapter, Right Answers After the Left Adapter, Right Answers After the Right Adapter, Check Patch Accuracy, Median Answer Time, Anticipations, Early Key Presses, Frame Interval, Dropped Frames, Patch Duration, Adapter Time, Completed Trials and Planned Trials. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Tilt Aftereffect Task used in research?
66 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, down 48% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 272 of 495 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade D). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.22.0, counted 3 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Tilt Aftereffect Task have?
In the published research, 2 papers report its test-retest reliability and 1 registered clinical study uses 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?
Patches at each tilt (4 to 8). 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.
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