About Dot Count
Dot Count flashes a scatter of coloured dots for about a second and asks how many there were. There is no time to count, so you have to estimate and pick from four close choices. A game is ten rounds, and the dots get more numerous and the flashes shorter as you go.
How to play
- Press Start and a set of coloured dots appears on a dark square, then disappears.
- Choose how many dots there were from four options. Only one is correct; the other three are close to it, within about 15 percent or at least 2 either way.
- After you pick, the dots reappear with the correct option outlined in green and a wrong pick outlined in red, so you can check your estimate.
- There is no time limit for choosing an answer; only the display of the dots is timed.
- The number of dots can be anywhere from 5 to 16 in round 1, and the upper limit grows by 4 each round, reaching 52 in round 10.
- The display time starts at about 1.5 seconds and shrinks by 0.08 seconds each round, down to 0.8 seconds in round 10.
- After ten rounds your score is the number of rounds you got right, out of 10.
Controls
- Mouse: click one of the four number buttons below the square.
- Touch: tap one of the four number buttons. The buttons only become active once the dots have disappeared.
- There are no keyboard controls.
Tips and strategy
- Do not try to count one by one. Instead, take in the whole square and form an overall impression of how dense it looks.
- Split the square into quarters in your mind and estimate each quarter quickly. Four small estimates added together are often closer than one big guess.
- Use the reveal to calibrate. Comparing your guess against the real answer after each round helps you learn what 20 or 40 dots looks like.
- Remember that dots are placed at random and can overlap, so tight clusters may hide a dot or two. Lean slightly higher when the dots look bunched up.
- Ignore the colours. They are random and have no link to the number of dots.
Background
People can tell how many items there are almost instantly when there are only a few, typically up to about four. This ability was named subitizing by Kaufman and colleagues in 1949. Beyond that small range people switch to counting or, when there is no time to count, to estimation. Estimates of larger quantities become less precise as the number grows, and the ability to tell two quantities apart depends roughly on their ratio rather than on their difference, a pattern consistent with Weber's law. That is why the wrong options in this game are spaced further apart as the counts get bigger.
Questions
- Is there a time limit for answering?
- No. The dots are shown for a limited time, but you can take as long as you like to choose an answer.
- How many rounds are there?
- Ten. Your final score is how many of the ten you answered correctly.
- Do the dots ever overlap?
- They can. Each dot is placed at a random position, so two dots occasionally land on top of each other.