Measured in points ยท higher is better
Peripheral Vision Test
Hold your gaze on the centre dot. Targets appear at the edge. Say what you saw.
Before you start
The median on mouse is 112 pts. Run the test and we will place you against it.
Compared against
Sit about an arm length from the screen and keep your head still. Distance changes this result more than anything else.
The other device classes
Trackpad
Touchscreen
Curve is a fitted baseline plus 0 first attempts recorded here. The baseline is a curve, not a sample: no part of it is a real person. Baseline is an estimate: centred well inside the anatomical field of view, because a browser test only covers the screen. No published dataset was found for it. Per-device offsets are extrapolated, not measured. The baseline is dropped once a device class holds 5,000 real first attempts. See the full distribution.
Hold your gaze on the centre
Sit about an arm length away. Keep your eyes on the centre dot the whole time. Shapes flash at the edge, and you name what you saw afterwards.
Understanding your score
| Band | pts | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Excellent | 160 and above | Strong detection well out into the periphery. |
| Very good | 135 to 159 | Above average across the field. |
| Good | 110 to 134 | A normal, healthy result. |
| Average | 80 to 109 | Where most results land. |
| Below average | 50 to 79 | Often fixation drift rather than vision. |
| Low | 49 and below | Repeat it once. If it holds, see an optometrist. |
How the score is built
Each round places a target at a random angle and a random distance from the centre. Targets further out are worth more, because detecting them is harder. Correctly naming the shape scores more than merely noticing that something appeared.
Your peripheral vision has almost no colour sensitivity and very low acuity, which is why the targets are large and simple. Beyond about 30 degrees from centre, most people can tell that something is there and cannot tell what it is. That transition point is what the score is really measuring.
Keeping your eyes still is the hard part
The instruction that matters is to keep your gaze fixed on the centre dot. The moment your eye moves toward a target, you are no longer testing peripheral vision, you are testing how fast you can look at things.
The urge to glance is close to involuntary, and most low scores on this test come from people who thought they were holding fixation and were not. The centre dot changes subtly during each round and you are asked about it afterwards, which is there to give you something to hold onto.
Sit about an arm length from the screen and keep your head still. Moving closer widens the visual angle the screen covers and makes the test harder in a way that is not comparable across people.
What a real visual field test does differently
Clinical perimetry uses a bowl-shaped instrument, a fixed head position, calibrated light levels, and an eye tracker that discards any trial where fixation was lost. It maps sensitivity point by point and can detect the specific field defects caused by glaucoma, stroke, and retinal disease.
A screen cannot do that. Your distance from the display is unknown, your fixation is unverified, and the screen covers only a fraction of your actual visual field. This test can tell you that something is worth checking. It cannot tell you what.
Peripheral field loss is often painless and gradual enough to go unnoticed for years, which is exactly why it is worth checking properly rather than relying on a web page.
Questions
- Can I test my visual field online?
- Only roughly. Without a fixed viewing distance, verified fixation, and calibrated brightness, a screen test can suggest that something is worth investigating but cannot map a field defect. If your result is low or you notice missing areas, see an optometrist.
- Can peripheral vision be trained?
- Attention across the field can be trained and does improve with practice, particularly for athletes and drivers. The underlying retinal sensitivity does not change. What improves is how much of what you can already see you actually notice.
- Why can I see the target but not tell what shape it is?
- That is normal and it is the point of the test. Cone density falls steeply away from the centre of the retina, so acuity and colour drop off long before motion and presence detection do. Beyond roughly 30 degrees, almost nobody can identify shapes.
- Does screen size change my score?
- Yes. A larger screen or sitting closer covers more of your visual field and pushes targets further into your periphery. Sit about an arm length away and use the same setup when comparing results.