Attention - Dance with the Fireflies

How To Play

Have you ever seen fireflies in the moonlight? Here, you will track and interpret complex patterns of movement as you watch and analyze five series of dancing fireflies. Each dance makes a pattern that you will be asked to recognize from among four different suggested trajectories. For each series, you'll have three attempts to find the correct trajectory. You may also choose between easy, medium, or complex dances and whether there are two, four or six fireflies. You can also vary the speed of the dances.

Cognitive Function Exercised

This exercise trains your visual attention and your working memory skills as you track the trajectory of moving objects while anticipating their direction. The pre-frontal area is the portion of the brain that helps us attend and concentrate to incoming information. Use your visual analysis skills to recognize the general shape of each firefly's dance. Concentrate on essential points (line intersections, width of trajectory, and so on) since they will help you rule out certain patterns and find the right ones. Your visual working memory will also help you keep each firefly's course in mind.

Benefits to Daily Life

Training your attention and visual tracking skills will help you recognize faces and complex patterns more readily. Also, certain activities such as team sports require attention to one's teammates and opponents, driving requires attention to other vehicles and pedestrians, and occupations such as air traffic control require simultaneous attention to many moving targets.