How do you play the Stroop Color Test?
A color name appears on the card. Ignore what the word means and tap the round button whose color matches the ink the word is printed in. If the word RED is painted blue, the blue button is the answer.
There are six colors: red, blue, green, yellow, purple and orange, and four buttons that change every question. One of the four is always the color the word names, so a hand that has already read the word tends to drift there. Every hit in the 60 seconds adds points, faster taps earn a bonus, and a streak of hits raises the combo multiplier up to 2x. A miss shakes the card and breaks the combo.
Why is naming the ink color so hard?
Reading is an automatic response practiced for decades, so the meaning of the word reaches your mind before the color does. The psychologist John Ridley Stroop demonstrated this in 1935, and it has been called the Stroop effect ever since.
When word and ink agree (GREEN printed in green) almost nobody misses and the response is quick. When they disagree you have to suppress the reading habit, which usually costs 100 to 200 ms more, and the gap widens when you are tired or distracted. That is why the test has long been used in clinics and labs to look at attention and inhibition, and this game turns the same procedure into a score.
What are the modes?
There are five modes and the default is Ink color, 60 seconds of naming the ink. Pick a mode button on the first screen and tap Start.
| Mode | What you pick | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Ink color | The color the word is printed in | 60 seconds |
| Word meaning | The color the word names (ignore the ink) | 60 seconds |
| Mixed | The tag flips between INK and MEANING every question. Hardest | 60 seconds |
| Two players | Split screen, same word. First correct tap scores 1 | 20 questions |
| Daily challenge | The same 30 mixed questions in the same order for everyone. One record per day | 30 questions |
In Mixed mode get into the habit of checking the tag in the top left corner of the card first. The tag grows for a moment and plays a sound when it flips, so catching that signal cuts mistakes.
How are the score and focus grade calculated?
Each hit is worth 10 points plus a speed bonus of up to 12, multiplied by a combo factor that grows with your streak up to 2x. Slower than 1.4 seconds earns no bonus; under 0.56 seconds earns the full bonus.
| Grade | Condition (accuracy and average reaction) |
|---|---|
| S Hawk eye | 95% or more, average under 700 ms |
| A Laser focus | 90% or more, average under 900 ms |
| B Steady focus | 80% or more, average under 1,150 ms |
| C A bit shaky | 65% or more |
| D Warm up more | Below that, or fewer than 5 hits |
The result screen shows accuracy, the average reaction time of your hits, your best combo and a bar graph of reaction time per question. Green bars are hits, red bars are misses and the dashed line is the average. Bars that grow toward the end mean your focus faded; a long bar right after a miss means the mistake rattled you.
How does two player work?
In Two players a phone in portrait splits top and bottom, a landscape screen splits left and right, and both sides see the same word. The first to tap the right color gets the point. A wrong tap locks you out of that question and leaves it to the other player.
- Phone: the top half is rotated 180 degrees so two people can sit facing each other with their own buttons.
- Computer: 1P on the left uses 1 2 3 4, 2P on the right uses 7 8 9 0. The key numbers are printed under the buttons.
- Result: after 20 questions the score and both average reaction times appear side by side.
What is the daily challenge?
Questions are generated from a seed taken from the date, so everyone gets the same 30 questions in the same order on the same day. There is no timer; finish the 30 and your score and grade become that day's record.
The questions use the mixed rule, so INK and MEANING tags alternate. The share card carries a daily challenge badge, so you can compare score and average reaction time with a friend who solved the exact same set.
How do you score higher?
- Do not read the word, see it as a blob of color. Keep your eyes on the color of the strokes rather than the center of the word and the meaning has less room to intrude.
- Scan the four buttons first. Their colors change every question, so a glance at the layout before you look at the word sends your hand straight to the right spot.
- The question after a miss is the dangerous one. Rushing after the card shakes often produces two misses in a row, so take one beat.
- Aim for combos in multiples of 5. At a streak of 20 a single question is worth up to 44 points. An unbroken streak matters more than raw speed.
- In Mixed, tag first. Once looking at the tag before the word becomes a reflex, Mixed gets almost as fast as Ink color.
Controls
- Touch or mouse: tap the round color buttons under the card. The buttons carry no text, only color.
- Keyboard: 1 2 3 4 or the arrow keys ← ↑ ↓ → are the four buttons from the left. Enter starts or restarts, Esc returns to the menu.
- Two players: 1P uses 1 2 3 4, 2P uses 7 8 9 0.
Best scores and the sound setting stay in this browser and are never sent to a server. This is a game, not a medical test, and it does not replace a clinical assessment.