A text-based Python project where the user's goal is to find the target item containing the letter K within a list of distractors. There are 8 trials, each presented only once, with difficulty increasing each round. Difficulty varies by item length, list length, or distractor features.
This project is inspired by the work of Ulric Neisser, a notable cognitive psychologist, particularly his 1964 paper on visual search. In it, Neisser studied how people perceive and process visual information amid distractors or irrelevant information by having participants scan long lists until they found the target items.
At the end, the user receives a summary of their results, including a graph of reaction time for each trial.
Built-in modules:
- random
- string
- time
- os
- sys
External:
- matplotlib
If you installed Python via the Anaconda distribution, matplotlib often comes pre-installed so no action needed.
If not, install it with: pip install matplotlib
See the matplotlib installation docs for more details: matplotlib docs
- Download
my_project.py - Install the required modules (see Requirements above)
- Run the script
I built my project using Python 3.13.9 in VS Code.
Preview.mov
Neisser, U. (1964). Visual Search. Scientific American. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0664-94
This project was built as a final project for code in place 2026 to showcase what I learned. It is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. Many thanks to the code in place team for this amazing experience.