Trail Making Test
A test of visual search, attention, mental flexibility, and motor function where participants connect numbered or lettered circles in sequence as quickly as possible.
The Trail-making test is used for detecting brain injury and assessing eye-hand coordination and procedural skill. The most common version is by Reitan (Halstead-Reitan Battery), but it dates back to tests like the Taylor Number Series and Partington Pathways test from WWII Army testing batteries. The PEBL version can use either Reitan's original configurations or automatically-generated sets of new problems (default and recommended). Auto-generated problems allow more runs for better reliability and run each problem in both forms (A and B) with reflected points to obscure similarity, providing better comparison between forms.
- Classic Reitan points have paths set up so they do not cross. For randomly-generated points, paths are likely to cross.
- Auto-generated version (default) is recommended for better reliability and improved form comparison.
| useReitan | Whether to use Reitan's points in the mix. (default: 0) |
| useShortPath | Whether to shorten the path so points tend to be adjacent. (default: 1) |
| shorteningtrials | Number of attempts to find the shortest path. Originally, this was always 1 (default: 1) |
| numtrials | total number of trials per condition (A and B). If usereitan == 1, 2 of them will be the Reitan configurations (default: 2) |
| useLetters | Should you also include a letter set? Note that this adds a third time through the same problem; this time reflected top-bottom. (default: 1) |
| doPractice | Do a short practice round between each round, using 4 items, to let them see how to do it. (default: 1) |
| targsize | Size in pixels of targets (radius) (default: 25) |
| TargclickSize | Size of click zone; may be smaller or larger (default: 25) |
| pointtolerance | minimum number of pixels of separation between targets (a soft constraint that will be violated if proper configuration cannot be found) (default: 2) |
| NumTargs | Number of targets to use in the non-reitan problems (default: 26) |
| DrawLines | Whether to draw lines between targets (default: 1) |
| fieldwidth | width of target field in pixels (default: 700) |
| fieldheight | height of target field in pixels (default: 500) |
Form A (numbers): Total completion time (totaltime) for numbers-only sequencing.
Form B (letters+numbers): Total completion time for alternating sequence - measures cognitive flexibility and task switching.
B-A difference: Difference between Form B and Form A times indicates switching cost.
Efficiency: Accuracy (acc) should be 1.0 for perfect performance (clicks = targs).
Longer times and lower efficiency indicate impaired visual search, motor speed, or executive function.
| subnum | trial | type | clicks | hits | clicktime | posx | posy | corr | id | rt | rt2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 1P | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6876 | 991 | 533 | 1 | 1 | 1148 | 1148 |
| 11 | 1P | 1 | 2 | 2 | 7261 | 976 | 481 | 1 | 2 | 385 | 385 |
| 11 | 1P | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7709 | 955 | 522 | 1 | 3 | 448 | 448 |
| 11 | 1P | 1 | 4 | 4 | 8294 | 1060 | 571 | 1 | 4 | 585 | 585 |