Odd One Out — Free Visual Search and Attention Game
A grid of look-alikes. One is different. Find it.
- Reflex
- 3 min
- Medium
Every cell in the grid shows the same character except one close look-alike. Tap the odd one as fast as you can. Level 1 is a 6×6 grid of clearly different letters; by level 18 the grid is 12×12 and the characters differ only by a small detail, like a b and a d. Each grid has a time limit, and a wrong tap costs a life.
Play Odd One OutDifficulty map
From level 1 to the final stop. Percentages come from real HumanCalc players.
- Stop 1 of 18, Easy: level 1.
- Stop 2 of 18, Easy: level 2.
- Stop 3 of 18, Easy: level 3.
- Stop 4 of 18, Easy: level 4.
- Stop 5 of 18, Easy: level 5.
- Stop 6 of 18, Easy: level 6.
- Stop 7 of 18, Medium: level 7.
- Stop 8 of 18, Medium: level 8.
- Stop 9 of 18, Medium: level 9.
- Stop 10 of 18, Medium: level 10.
- Stop 11 of 18, Medium: level 11.
- Stop 12 of 18, Medium: level 12.
- Stop 13 of 18, Hard: level 13.
- Stop 14 of 18, Hard: level 14.
- Stop 15 of 18, Hard: level 15.
- Stop 16 of 18, Hard: level 16.
- Stop 17 of 18, Hard: level 17.
- Stop 18 of 18, Hard: level 18.
Easy
Lvl 1–6
Medium
Lvl 7–12
Hard
Lvl 13–18
How it works
1A grid of the same character. One look-alike hides in it.
2Tap the one that differs. Speed counts.
3Higher levels: bigger grids, closer look-alikes.
How to play
- 1
Scan the grid
A 6×6 grid of characters appears. All of them are the same except one look-alike, for example one F among many Es.
- 2
Tap the odd one
Tap the character that differs. The clock starts as soon as the grid appears, so speed counts as much as accuracy. A wrong tap costs a life and the grid stays; the grid ends when you find it or time runs out.
- 3
Climb the levels
Every grid you clear moves you up a level. Grids grow every second level, up to 12×12, and the look-alikes get harder to tell apart. You have three lives.
What it trains
Cut the delay between seeing and acting. Visual search research studies how people find a target among similar distractors. The more alike the target and distractors are, and the more of them there are, the slower the search tends to be. This game adjusts both; your level measures performance in this game, not a clinical attention test.
- Practice focus
- Reflex
- Based on
- Treisman & Gelade, 1980
Research background
- Treisman & Gelade (1980): A feature-integration theory of attention
- Wolfe (2020): Visual search: How do we find what we are looking for?
These sources describe related tasks or concepts. HumanCalc adapts them for browser practice; a game score is not a clinical result.
Leaderboard
Resets every Monday 00:00 UTC. The overall weekly top 3 earn a medal and +500 / +300 / +150 XP. How scores work. Scores here show as Lvl 5.
Leaderboard
Questions
How do I find the odd character faster?
Do not read cell by cell. Let your eyes move across rows in a steady sweep and look for a small change in shape. Practice at the same level a few times; scanning gets smoother with repetition.
How much time do I get?
About 7 seconds for the first 6×6 grid, up to about 11 seconds for the 12×12 grid. Bigger grids get more time, but less time per cell, so you have to scan faster as you climb.
What counts as my score?
The highest level you cleared, out of 18. Fastest and average find times are shown on the result screen but do not change the stored score.
What happens when time runs out?
You lose a life, the odd character is shown, and a new grid of the same level appears. With no lives left, the run ends.
Try next
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