Hawk Eye

Hawk Eye exercises your visual precision, which helps the brain perceive what you see quickly and accurately so that you can recall it better. Visual precision is what enables you to remember details about what you saw in a movie, at a wedding, when house hunting, while birdwatching, and everywhere else you go. If you remember such details accurately, you can talk about them later and take action based on them.

Hawk Eye challenges your visual precision by asking you to locate a target bird amongst a flock of birds in your peripheral vision, even though they appear on screen for a very short time. 

Here’s how the exercise works:

1. The START screen will display the target and distractor birds for this level. The section of the screen where the target bird is located will be highlighted. Select START to begin.
   
2. Birds will appear on screen for a moment. While the birds are on screen, locate the target bird.
   
3. The birds will disappear, and the screen will clear again. From here you can select the portion of the screen that the target bird had appeared in.
   

If an incorrect answer is given you’ll hear a “bonk” sound, the correct location of the target bird will be revealed, and the birds in future turns may appear on screen for a longer time. If a correct answer is given you’ll hear a “boop” sound, and the birds may appear on screen for less time than before. In both cases, the level then continues, repeating from Step 2 above.

You can review the exercise video tutorial below:

Hawk Eye from BrainHQ from Posit Science on Vimeo.

As you progress through Hawk Eye, it becomes more challenging in these ways:

• The bird pairs become more similar, challenging the brain to make finer distinctions.
• The birds spread farther apart, pushing your brain to see details farther from the center of visual attention.
• The background becomes more complex, encouraging your brain to spot subtle details even when the background interferes.