The Core Battery

The core test battery is designed to run in a similar way on three platforms

• Personal Computer (standalone and web browser)
• Handheld PDA
• Mobile Phone

This has advantages for research projects which employ a number of different modes of test administration, but leads to certain restrictions, the main ones being

• Stimulus displays have to be able to fit on a small screen, which can be as small as 96 X 52 pixels. They scale automatically to fit larger displays.
• Responses are made on a keypad, using either LEFT, RIGHT, and CONFIRM or the numeric keys 0 - 9.
• Touch screen is not supported for this set of tests (thoughh we are working on this) nor is there an external response box

The platform we use most is the mobile phone, with a standard numeric keypad. Most of the tests use a two-choice format, with 4 used for LEFT or YES, 6 used for RIGHT or NO. The phone is held as shown on the left, with the two thumbs over the 4 and 6 keys.  Any phone with Java ("downloadable games") a screen at least 128 X 128 pixels, and a numeric keypad will run the core battery. This means that even many odler phones will work OK. This is a great advantage, if you want to run tests on volunteers own phones, as it means that most people will already have a suitable phone. If you need features like storing data on the phone card, we can do this, but it means that you need a reasonably up-to-date phone. This doesn't mean expensive - the phones we are currently using are priced at under £100 in the UK for pay-as-you-go. We generally supply packages configured for a specific project.

The following tests are currently available. Click on the test name for a description. Demos are available for several of the test. Instructions on running the demo are in the description pages.

PC Tests

There are some useful tests that cannot be implemented on all platforms. For example mental rotation requires too large a screen display, and the logical working memory test needs 8 response options. Such tests are made available on the PC only.

Digital Pen

The digital pen provides an excellent way to automate pen and paper tasks that won't fit onto a PDA or pen tablet screen

Click here to find out more about digital pens

Newton Tests

You can still obtain the original PenScreen battery on the Apple Newton, and used Newtons can still be obtained. This is a convenient and inexpensive route for small research projects.