Attentional Network Test for Interaction Birds - ANTI-Birds with Touch input

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Credits:
https://osf.io/xbm23/overview

Created: January 19, 2026

Last Modified: January 24, 2026 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the Attentional Network Test for Interaction Birds (ANTI-Birds), a behavioral measure of alerting, orienting and executive attention published by Casagrande et al (2022), The ANTI-Birds task is a variant of the Attention Network Test-Interaction (ANT-I, Callejas et al, 2005) specifically designed for preschoolers (Ages 3-6).

This script is based on the publicly available eprime script (with Italian instructions) by the original authors. The original script uses the mouse buttons as the input modality. This script was edited to present response buttons on the screen which allows easy test administration on touchscreen devices (Note: buttons can also be selected with a mouse).

References

Casagrande, M., Marotta, A., Martella, D., Volpari, E., Agostini, F., Favieri, F., Forte, G., Rea, M., Ferri, R., Giordano, V., Doricchi, F., & Giovannoli, J. (2022). Assessing the three attentional networks in children from three to six years: A child-friendly version of the Attentional Network Test for Interaction. Behavior Research Methods, 54(3), 1403–1415. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01668-5

Callejas A, Lupiàñez J, Funes MJ, Tudela P (2005). Modulations among the alerting, orienting and executive control networks. Exp Brain Res 167:27–37. doi:10.1007/s00221-005-2365-z

Duration

20 minutes

Description

Participants see a nest in the center of the screen (= fixation) with 5 eggs displayed above and 5 eggs displayed below the nest. Five birds will 'hatch': They will either 'hatch' out of the top or the bottom eggs. The birds can have two colors: red or yellow. The 'flanking' birds on the left and right have always the same color; the middle bird can have a different color: YYYYY, RRRRR, YYRYY, RRYRR. Participants are asked to press the YELLOW button if the middle bird is yellow. Participants are asked to press the RED mouse button if the middle bird is red.

Sometimes, before the birds 'hatch', the participants hear some birds chirping (= alerting tone) and/or see the eggs change their shapes for a brief period of time. Sometimes, the changing eggs signal that the birds appear in this location (valid spatial cue), sometimes they simply signal that the birds appear but they 'predict' the wrong location (invalid spatial cue). Sometimes the birds appear without any changing eggs.

Procedure

Intro

Practice: 1 Block Of 12 Trials

Test: 3 Blocks Of 48 Trials

Trial Sequence:

Stimuli

images + audiofiles provided by Casagrande et al (2022) with original eprime script
https://osf.io/xbm23/overview


- Millisecond replaced audiofiles that contained Italian with English ones
- the stimuli are presented with proportional sizing (the images are scaled to 100% width of the current canvas)
If you want to use Absolute Sizing to norm the appearance across devices, go to section Defaults for
more information

Instructions

The instructions are based on the Italian instructions used in the original eprime script but modified for the
touchscreen.
They can be edited in script 'c_cpt_instructions_inc.iqjs'.
The original script did NOT run verbal instructions; the verbal instructions in this script were added by Millisecond
to streamline the instruction delivery and are optional. They can be turned off in the parameter section.

English verbal instructions were generated with
https://ttsmaker.com/
voice: Elizabeth

Summary Data

File Name: anti_birds_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

Raw Data

File Name: anti_birds_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.