How does the hidden figures test work?
Five simple shapes, labelled A, B, C, D, E, stay on screen. Each drawing hides exactly one of them, at the same size and turned the same way, though other lines may run through it or carry on past its ends. Tap the shape you find. After you answer, the hidden shape is traced in colour.
There are 10 drawings, new every game, and each shape is the answer twice. The game checks every drawing before showing it: its answer fits in exactly one place, and none of the other four fits anywhere.
How is your Hidden Figures Test result calculated?
Your result is the number of drawings you answered correctly, out of 10, with your time and the time per drawing. Guessing would get about 2 right. No published average exists for these drawings, so there is no rating.
How do you find a hidden figure?
Pick out the most unusual part of each shape, such as a pair of diagonals that cross or a corner with a tail, and search the drawing for that part alone. When you find it, check the rest of the shape from there. Size and direction never change, so a match that is bigger, smaller or turned is not the one.
- Rule shapes out. A shape needing a line the drawing lacks, like a long diagonal, can be set aside at once.
- Ignore lines that run on. A side of the hidden shape can be part of a longer line.
- Use the grid. Every line joins neighbouring points of a 6 × 6 grid, so the shapes sit on it too.
A drawing here averages 29 short strokes out of the 110 its grid could hold, counted over 200 drawings made by the game's own code.
Where does the Hidden Figures Test come from?
Finding a simple figure inside a complex one goes back to Kurt Gottschaldt's figures in the 1920s, which Herman Witkin used to build his Embedded Figures Test. This game follows the format of the Hidden Figures Test in the Kit of Factor-Referenced Cognitive Tests from Educational Testing Service (Ekstrom, French, Harman and Dermen, 1976): five shapes, one hidden in each drawing.
It is a puzzle, not a diagnostic test. It isn't a test for autism, ADHD or any other condition, and a score here says nothing about one. For more visual searching, try the Visual Search Test or Spot the Difference.