Stroop Test
Pick the ink color the word is drawn in โ not what the word says. We measure your average reaction time and accuracy across 30 rounds.
Tap to startStroop measures how well you suppress irrelevant information. MIKIRI measures how well you grab only what matters when there's no time. Both are the speed of the same mental filter.
Can you read a number that vanishes in 0.4s?Bonus: can you read a number shown for 0.4 seconds?
Next after this test comes split-second vision. Try one round of the real MIKIRI mechanic right here.
The real game starts at 3 digits and slow, and ends with 12 digits in a blink. Free, no signup, world ranking.
Play MIKIRI free โถ| Rating | Average reaction time | |
|---|---|---|
| S | < 650ms | Interference-resistant |
| A | 650โ800ms | Fast |
| B | 800โ950ms | Around average |
| C | 950โ1100ms | Below average |
| D | ≥ 1100ms | Warm up first |
How this test works
A color-name word (like "Red") appears drawn in a different color (like blue ink). Tap the swatch matching the ink color, not what the word says, from the four options below. This repeats 30 times.
Some rounds are "congruent" (word and ink match) and some are "incongruent" (they don't). Incongruent rounds are usually slower โ we show that gap as your interference time.
How to get better
- Don't try to "read" the word โ treat the letters as a shape and pull out only the color
- Don't memorize swatch positions from memory โ actually look each time, since the layout can vary
- Don't fear mistakes โ settle into your own pace first, then speed up gradually
Want to measure reaction or memory too?
Try our reaction time test or number memory test. MIKIRI has fifteen free games โ visual search (MATCH), resisting illusions (MIRAGE) โ each with a global top-100 leaderboard.
Try other tests
Why naming the colour gets hard
When the word "RED" is printed in blue, you stall for a moment before saying "blue". That happens because reading runs automatically. You cannot switch it off just by deciding not to read.
Reading has become automatic through years of practice. Automatic processes are fast and have an answer ready before deliberate control catches up. To name the colour you have to push that ready answer aside, and that costs time.
So this test is not measuring how well you tell colours apart. It measures how well you suppress unwanted information. In MIKIRI, holding back from striking the forbidden red stone in GATEFALL is a similar kind of load.
How to read your result
The gap between matching trials (word and colour agree) and mismatching ones is the size of the interference. Look at that difference, not the absolute times: on a slow day both get slower together.
- Colour vision differences โ some colour pairs may be hard to tell apart in the first place. Then the result does not reflect suppression at all.
- Screen settings โ night mode or blue-light filters change how colours look.
- Familiarity โ repeating the test shrinks the gap, partly because you learn its patterns. That is not necessarily stronger control.
FAQ
- What is the Stroop effect?
- A psychological phenomenon where a mismatch between a word's meaning and its visual color briefly confuses the brain, slowing your response. Reading is so automatic that it interferes with naming the color.
- What's a normal amount of interference?
- Incongruent rounds are often 50-200ms slower than congruent ones, though this varies a lot between people and even day to day.
- Does accuracy matter too?
- Yes. Speed alone isn't the whole picture โ a fast average with low accuracy may just mean you're guessing rather than actually reading the ink color.
- Is this test free?
- Completely free, no signup. Works in any phone or desktop browser.