What is Signal Switch?

A task-switching game. One tile both points in a direction and drifts in a direction; its colour decides which question you answer. Green asks where it points, orange asks where it drifts. One wrong answer ends the streak.

How do I tell pointing from drifting?

The solid triangle is the pointer; the little streaming chevrons are the drift. They often disagree on purpose · that disagreement is what makes the colour rule matter.

Cognitive flexibility · holding two response rules in mind and switching between them on a colour cue. The slowdown people show right after a rule changes is a classic laboratory measure of executive control, and practice reduces it.

Always read the colour before you look at the arrows. Players who parse the directions first commit to an answer before they know which question is being asked.

Yes · the pointing and drifting directions conflict more and more often as difficulty rises, until every round punishes the wrong rule.

Signal Switch · ¿Apunta o deriva? · Español

A green leaf asks where it points · an orange leaf asks where it drifts. Read the colour, switch the rule

Green tile · answer where it points. Orange tile · answer where it drifts. JavaScript required.

Enable JavaScript to play.