bemerktest

Bemerktest is a cognitive psychology assessment designed to measure an individual's ability to notice salient stimuli within a rapid stream of information. The term combines the German bemerken, meaning to notice, with test, reflecting its focus on perceptual awareness. It was developed for experimental study of attention and awareness in controlled settings.

In a standard protocol, participants view a rapid sequence of visual stimuli, often an RSVP (rapid serial visual presentation) display on a computer, and are instructed to press a button when a predefined target appears. Stimuli may be letters, shapes, or photographs. Key measures include detection accuracy (hit rate) and reaction time to correct detections; some variants compute signal detection theory metrics such as d′ and criterion c to separate perceptual sensitivity from response bias.

Variants of the bemerktest differ in aspects such as stimulus type, presentation duration, target frequency, and whether auditory or cross-modal stimuli are used. The test has been employed in basic research on selective attention, perceptual consciousness, aging, ADHD, and fatigue, as well as in applied contexts such as driver-assistance studies and user-interface evaluation.

Limitations of the bemerktest include sensitivity to task design and practice effects, which can influence performance across sessions. Critics also point to limited ecological validity and questions about how well laboratory measures of noticing translate to real-world perceptual awareness.

See also: inattentional blindness, vigilance, rapid serial visual presentation, signal detection theory.