Multiple Object Tracking: The Task, Tests and Training

What is multiple object tracking?

In a typical multiple object tracking task, a set of identical dots or balls appears and a few are briefly marked as targets. The marks disappear, every item moves around for several seconds, and then everything stops. Your job is to pick out the targets.

The task comes from a 1988 paper by Pylyshyn and Storm in the journal Spatial Vision. People could track up to 5 targets among 10 identical, randomly moving objects. The researchers set the speeds so that a strategy of checking each target in turn should have scored no better than about 40%, yet people were 87% accurate. Pylyshyn and Storm linked this to an earlier model, called FINST, in which the visual system keeps a small number of objects indexed at once.

A 2017 tutorial review by Meyerhoff, Papenmeier and Huff argued that MOT is a good way to study continuous, moving attention. They wrote that many researchers claim the task reflects the attention used in driving or team sports, and that several partly conflicting theories of tracking have been proposed.

How many objects can you track? Capacity limits

Early studies put the limit at about four objects. Later work showed the number depends on the conditions:

• Speed: in a 2007 study, Alvarez and Franconeri found that people could track up to 8 objects when they moved slowly, but only 1 at fast speeds. They concluded that tracking draws on a flexible resource rather than a fixed number of slots.
• Left and right sides: in 2005, Alvarez and Cavanagh reported that people could track twice as many targets when the targets were split between the left and right halves of the visual field as when they were all on one side.
• Age: a 2008 study by Sekuler and colleagues found that older adults (average age 75) tracked much less well than young adults (average age 21), especially with faster movement or longer tracking times.
• Gaming: in a 2006 study, C. Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier found that action video game players tracked about two more items than non-players, and non-players trained on an action game showed the same kind of gain.

The multiple object tracking test in research

Researchers change a few things to make the task easier or harder: how many targets there are, how many decoys, how fast they move and how long they move. Many versions record accuracy at fixed settings. Others adjust one setting, often speed, trial by trial to find the level a person can just manage. A 2013 study, for example, used 9 spheres in a 3D display, 3 or 4 targets, 10 seconds of movement and a speed staircase.

An online multiple object tracking test can show you what the task feels like. Its score is not comparable across websites or devices, because each version uses its own settings, and screen size and timing vary.

NeuroTracker and 3D multiple object tracking

NeuroTracker is a commercial 3D version of the task. A 2013 paper by Jocelyn Faubert of the Université de Montréal said the software was distributed by CogniSens Athletics as the commercial equivalent of a lab procedure licensed from the Université de Montréal. A 2013 paper co-written by Faubert disclosed that he was Chief Science Officer of CogniSens, which produced NeuroTracker. A 2021 systematic review said the tool was promoted and sold by a Montreal research centre named for Faubert and by CogniSens Athletics, and that professional clubs in several leagues had been reported to use it.

In Faubert's 2013 study of 308 people, professional athletes learned the task faster across up to 15 sessions than elite amateurs, who learned faster than university students. Our guide to peripheral vision training covers the soccer studies of NeuroTracker, including a 2025 follow-up whose authors wrote that it failed to replicate an earlier result.

Multiple object tracking training: what studies found

Across studies, people got better at the tracking task they practiced. Results on other tasks and on sport varied. The 2021 review of NeuroTracker by Vater, Gray and Holcombe found no preregistered studies, called the evidence for working memory and sustained attention gains "very weak", and found that 2 of 3 studies of real-world tasks showed no effect. For brain training in general, our hub on the science behind the games explains near and far transfer.

MOT in sports

Sports use of multiple object tracking rests on the idea that following several players at once draws on the same attention the lab task does. The 2017 tutorial review noted that this link is commonly argued. Studies that tested it directly measured different things: passing decisions rated by a coach, blocking in a lab volleyball test, small-sided games and season statistics. In the training studies above, trained athletes improved at the tracking task, while effects on sport measures differed from study to study.

Vater and colleagues also argued that the several hundred basic MOT studies point to abilities that differ from those described in NeuroTracker's marketing, and they gave recommendations for future research. When reading a study, check whether it had an active control group, whether it was preregistered, and whether any author has a financial tie to the tool.

Where Optics Trainer fits

Optics Trainer is a set of game-based vision and brain training apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, web browsers and Meta Quest. Two of its games and three of its drills are modeled on multiple object tracking:

The games keep the core of the lab task: marked targets, identical decoys, movement, then a pick. They change the wrapper: cartoon UFOs and spinning pairs, a game screen in place of a 3D lab display, points, and settings chosen by a game ladder rather than a research protocol. They were not tested in any study described here. They are not a test or measure of tracking capacity, and Optics Trainer is not a treatment or diagnosis and is not FDA cleared. Optics Tracker, on our clinic site, is our measurement product. Optics Trainer is not a substitute for professional diagnosis or prescribed care. Consult your eye care professional for guidance about your specific condition.

The phone and tablet apps start with a 7-day free trial, and a free web account includes 3 plays a day. After that, mobile and web access is $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year, and VR access is $19.99 a month or $199 a year after a 7-day free trial.

• UFO Bounce: follow several marked UFOs among decoys as they bounce around, then pick them out. Levels change one thing at a time: speed, the number of targets, the number of decoys or how long they move.
• Target Rotator: pairs of spheres spin, and you pick the marked one in each pair. Levels change speed, the number of pairs, or how the pairs turn.
• Both games can also be played in a binocular mode, where each eye sees part of the display, with red-blue glasses on a phone, tablet or computer and built in on Meta Quest.
• Multiple-Object Tracking drills in the Drills tab: Multiple Dots, Multiple Dots 3D and Spinning Pairs. These are watch-and-follow drills with no score, in slow, medium and fast speeds and 1, 2 or 3 minute sessions.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Pylyshyn ZW, Storm RW. Tracking multiple independent targets: evidence for a parallel tracking mechanism. Spat Vis. 1988
2. Meyerhoff HS, Papenmeier F, Huff M. Studying visual attention using the multiple object tracking paradigm: a tutorial review. Atten Percept Psychophys. 2017
3. Alvarez GA, Franconeri SL. How many objects can you track? Evidence for a resource-limited attentive tracking mechanism. J Vis. 2007
4. Alvarez GA, Cavanagh P. Independent resources for attentional tracking in the left and right visual hemifields. Psychol Sci. 2005
5. Sekuler R, McLaughlin C, Yotsumoto Y. Age-related changes in attentional tracking of multiple moving objects. Perception. 2008
6. Green CS, Bavelier D. Enumeration versus multiple object tracking: the case of action video game players. Cognition. 2006
7. Faubert J. Professional athletes have extraordinary skills for rapidly learning complex and neutral dynamic visual scenes. Sci Rep. 2013
8. Legault I, Allard R, Faubert J. Healthy older observers show equivalent perceptual-cognitive training benefits to young adults for multiple object tracking. Front Psychol. 2013
9. Vater C, Gray R, Holcombe AO. A critical systematic review of the Neurotracker perceptual-cognitive training tool. Psychon Bull Rev. 2021
10. Arend AM, Zimmer HD. Successful training of filtering mechanisms in multiple object tracking does not transfer to filtering mechanisms in a visual working memory task. Neuropsychologia. 2012
11. Tullo D, et al. Training with a three-dimensional multiple object-tracking (3D-MOT) paradigm improves attention in students with a neurodevelopmental condition: a randomized controlled trial. Dev Sci. 2018
12. Fleddermann MT, Heppe H, Zentgraf K. Off-court generic perceptual-cognitive training in elite volleyball athletes: task-specific effects and levels of transfer. Front Psychol. 2019
13. Harenberg S, et al. The effectiveness of 3D multiple object tracking training on decision-making in soccer. Sci Med Footb. 2022
14. Acquin JM, et al. Baseline Neurotracker performance does not correlate to overall season sport performance in university varsity athletes. Front Sports Act Living. 2025

Related guides

• Peripheral Vision Training: Games, Apps and the Research
• Eye Tracking Exercises: Saccades, Pursuits and Fixation
• Brain Games Backed by Science? The Lab Tasks Behind Them
• Visual Brain Training: What It Is, What the Research Says, and How to Practice
• Visual Search Task: Set Size, Theory and Training Studies
• Dynamic Visual Acuity: Tests, Sports Studies and Training