Test of Attentional Performance

Abbreviation: TAP

In the late 1980s, Peter Zimmermann and Bruno Fimm in Freiburg created the first version of a Neuropsychological test battery for the assessment of attention deficits, at that time still for the Commodore C64, one of the first commercially successful 8-bit home computers. Both stimulus presentation and scoring were performed by computer. In addition to simple reaction time measurements (Alertness), the tests included choice reactions (Go/NoGo) and the simultaneous attending to visual and acoustic stimuli (Divided attention). After the IBM PC/AT and its clones had become the standard in the second half of the 1980s, a further version of the program was published in 1992 under the name Testbatterie zur Aufmerksamkeitsprüfung (TAP) (Test of Attentional Performance) and distributed by the company Psytest. Since then the authors have repeatedly adapted the TAP to new DOS versions and, beginning with TAP version 2.0, to the various Windows versions. The TAP depends strongly, both in stimulus presentation and in reaction time measurement, on hardware technology, which has changed extremely over the years (from cathode-ray tube monitors to flat-panel displays, from parallel ports to the USB port). The constant adaptation of the program to current hardware and software over a time span of more than 30 years represents a highly remarkable achievement that is otherwise hardly found in computerized tests.

For some years now, version 2.3.1 of the TAP has been available¹⁾. It runs on Windows 7, 8.1, 10 and, from TAP build number 202206, also on 11, and uses response keys that are connected via a USB port. At a second USB port, a dongle checks the legitimate purchase of the program.

The TAP has become the standard instrument for the computerized assessment of various components of attention, not only in Germany. It has been used in many general psychological and neuropsychological studies, many of which are cited in the manual. The company also maintains a list of scientific papers in which the TAP was used.

The Test of Attentional Performance assesses reaction speed and response quality in attention tasks of differing difficulty and complexity. It consists of these 13 tests:

1. Alertness
2. Working memory
3. Eye movements
4. Cross-modal integration
5. Sustained attention
6. Flexibility
7. Visual field and neglect
8. Divided attention
9. Go/NoGo
10. Incompatibility
11. Covert shift of attention
12. Vigilance
13. Visual scanning

Many of the tests can be administered with different modalities, options or difficulty levels, which increases the number of possible tests to 33. The examinee must always respond to certain simple or complex, mostly visual, rarely (also) acoustic conditions by pressing one of two keys as quickly as possible and with as few errors as possible. A test consists of between 40 and 100 individual trials. For each test the program provides several measured values. There is always a statistical summary of the reaction times in the individual trials (e.g., median, standard deviation), usually also parameters for the correctness of the response (e.g., number of errors or omissions). These parameters are always output for the entire test, often also for particular sub-periods or sub-conditions. The list of calculated raw scores across all tests is three pages long. In the manual, the neuropsychological background of each test is explained in detail, also with references to further literature.

The TAP is manufactured and distributed by the company Vera Fimm Psytest (www.psytest.net). In addition to the classic test battery for adults discussed here, there is also a version for children and a special variant for driving fitness assessments. It is supplied as a Windows program on a USB dongle and must be installed locally. Two manuals accompany the program, one of which describes the subtests together with their theoretical background, the other containing the normative data. The computer used for test administration must meet certain requirements, which can be found on the website.

The material is protected by copyright and, moreover, is supplied only to certain professional groups. It is available only from the company Psytest, which provides a service in case of problems with installation or with the administration of the tests.

The TAP is administered as an individual test. The TAP manual describes in detail the operation of the computer and the administration of the tests. The test administrator enters the personal data and selects a test. For each test there is an instruction on the screen, and always first a practice pretest. Only then follows the actual main test, which is scored.

The results are output as tables and as graphical displays, both very detailed.

The duration of testing depends on which tests are administered and how quickly an examinee understands the task. The administration times of the main tests are between about 2 and 6 minutes; the measurement of sustained attention, at 15 minutes, by the nature of the task takes longer. The pretests usually last only 1 to 2 minutes, but can occasionally take longer if there are problems understanding the task.

In TDB2Online not all tests and certainly not all measured values are evaluated. Two considerations were decisive for the inclusion of a measured value and a test: it should (1.) represent a general aspect of attention that can be relevant for many patients and examinees, (2.) represent the entire test duration and not just a partial segment, and (3.) be normed on as many examinees as possible. Table 1 shows the tests evaluated in TDB2Online, the sample size of the normative data, the parameters evaluated, and their abbreviations in the input form of TDB2 and TDB2Online.

Table 1: Evaluable tests and parameters

ªMd(RT) = median reaction time for the respective test

All normative data for the five tests are available across the age range from 19 to 89 or 90 years.

For many versions now, the TAP has had its own detailed manual for the norms. The norming process of the TAP evidently extended over many years; some newly added tests or options still have no norms or only norms based on small samples. It is clear that the norms come from various sources; in the manual, individual persons and institutions are thanked. They will have been predominantly or exclusively convenience samples, for which a reference population would be difficult to specify. It is not stated when which data were collected or on the basis of which characteristics they were added to the normative data.

The norm manual presents the composition of the samples individually for all tests and administration conditions, broken down by gender, school education (< 12 years and ≥ 12 years) and 10-year age groups. The composition differs from test to test. There are some in which the age group 20-29 is clearly overrepresented (Alertness, Working memory, Go/NoGo), while in others many older persons between 60 and 79 are also represented (Flexibility, Divided attention).

To our knowledge, no norms for the TAP are available from other sources. A norming study published in 1996²⁾ on 200 persons aged between 20 and 60 years, which was based on a sampling plan, was incorporated into the norms, as can be inferred from the information in the journal. If one searches the exemplary literature database of the company Psytest, which contains 2892 publications for the TAP (as of July 2026), with a full-text search for “Norms” for the TAP, no further relevant papers are found.

The representativeness of the available norms cannot be assessed because of the multitude of sources. The manual gives no information on this.

see the detailed documentation

In the test profile of TDB2Online, only 5 tests of the TAP, and only their most important administration forms and parameters, are included. We selected tests and administration forms according to whether they are of general interest for a cognitive performance assessment and have as extensive a normative basis as possible. Other tests and administration forms are more relevant for special neuropsychological questions.

But even for the tests included here a caveat applies: in order to be able to judge the methodological interpretability of the parameters in the individual case, the person writing the report should always take a long look at the tables output by the TAP. If, for example, the reaction times in the four sections of the Alertness test become longer and longer, it makes little sense to consider only the mean of the four sections (that is the parameter shown in the profile). Often it is precisely the individual results that are also important in order to test further neuropsychological hypotheses about the source of possible deficits with other tests or administration options. The parameters presented in TDB2Online are merely those that provide relatively comprehensive information about general attentional performance when there are otherwise no peculiarities.

For the preparation of the norms for TDB2Online, only the norms reported in the TAP manual were available, on which the norms output by the program are based. These norms are based on residual scores of the raw scores after adjustment for the influences of education, age and gender by linear (education, gender) or polynomial (age) regressions. Only the adjusted scores were then linearized by an percentile-to-normal transformation. We are therefore dealing with heavily processed data, the extent of processing varying across the tests, administration conditions and parameters. For the individual parameters processed in TDB2Online, peculiar trends are occasionally seen, the origin of which is probably to be found in the regression calculation used. A note on the versions of the TAP is also pertinent here: in the change from version 2.1 of the TAP to version 2.3 there were certain changes to the norms. The changes did not affect the raw data of the norming, nor the number of persons included, but the regression-based corrections, and they affected both regression coefficients and norm tables. TDB2Online uses the values of the current TAP 2.3.