Visual Tracking
Follow a moving dot, jump your gaze between targets, find one shape in a busy field, and keep track of moving dots. Four short exercises with presets to start and dials to adjust. A practice activity, not a test or a treatment.
Quick round · about 2 minAttentionNo words to read
Exercises
Before you start. Sit about an arm's length from the screen, keep your head still, and wear the glasses you use for screens. Stop if you feel dizzy or sick, or get a headache, eye pain or double vision.
When to check with a clinician first
- A concussion or head injury in recent weeks, or symptoms that are still settling
- Dizziness, vertigo, or a balance or inner ear condition
- Double vision, nystagmus, a recent eye operation, or loss of part of your vision
- Seizures set off by lights or patterns, or migraines set off by screens
Get medical help right away for sudden loss of vision, sudden double vision, a sudden severe headache, or weakness, numbness or trouble speaking.
Next, try
About the Visual Tracking exercise
Following a bird across the sky, finding your car in a parking lot, reading along a line of text, watching two children on a playground at once: everyday looking is made of small eye movements. The eyes glide after something that moves, jump from one place to the next, sweep a scene in order, and keep track of several things at the same time.
Visual Tracking puts four of those movements on screen as short practice exercises. Follow the dot glides a target along a path and asks for a tap when a small star appears inside it. Jump and look moves a dot from place to place. Find it hides one shape in a busy field. Keep track rings a few dots, lets them all move, and asks which ones you followed. Each round ends with plain counts: stars noticed, time to tap, shapes found, dots found.
What Visual Tracking practices
- Following a moving target
- Follow the dot asks for steady attention on one thing while it moves. The star inside the dot is small, so noticing it means the eyes stayed on the target rather than ahead of it or behind it.
- Shifting the gaze
- Jump and look asks the eyes to leave one place and land on another, then take in what is there. Read the arrow makes the landing count, because the arrow cannot be read from the corner of the eye.
- Organized search
- Find it rewards a sweep that covers the whole screen. The start line on the left builds the habit of beginning at one edge and working across, the way a page is read.
- Keeping track of several things
- Keep track asks for attention spread across two, three or four moving dots among identical ones, as at a busy crossing or a playground.
How the tool works and what it records
Each exercise has free presets and Pro dials. Follow the dot: six paths (side to side, up and down, diagonal, circle, figure eight, wandering), five speeds from 10 seconds a lap to 2.5, steady or varying speed, a wide or narrow range, still background shapes, a path line, and three ways to respond (tap at each star, follow with a finger, just watch), for 1 to 3 minutes. Jump and look: dots side to side, up and down, on the diagonals, in four corners or anywhere, at three distances, self-paced or every 2, 1.5 or 1 seconds, tapped or read from the arrow inside, for 10 to 30 jumps. Find it: 12 to 48 shapes, clearly different, similar or rings with gaps, scattered or in rows, with the shape to find placed evenly or more to one side, a start line on the left, for 8 to 20 searches. Keep track: 4 to 12 dots with 1 to 4 to follow, three speeds, 5 to 12 seconds of movement, an optional speed adjustment, for 5 to 12 rounds. Target size, background (light, dark or black), target color, sounds and large print are free on every exercise.
A round starts with a one-screen instruction card and runs in the whole window with a Pause button. The finished screen shows two to four plain counts: the time, stars noticed and the typical time to tap; jumps and the typical time to tap or answer; shapes found with the typical time to find and the left, middle and right of the screen listed separately; dots found of dots followed. Every number comes from taps on the screen, which do not record eye movements, and the screen says so. Free accounts get 5 rounds a day on the presets plus one round a day with every dial open; Pro adds unlimited rounds, every dial, a PDF summary, the session log and home practice links.
Screen or paper?
The screen is the only place a target can move, so Follow the dot, Jump and look and Keep track have no paper twin. Find it is close to the visual scanning pages in the printable sets: a field of shapes with targets to find. Paper suits a table, a pen and a sheet that is kept; the screen suits graded practice with a fresh field every time and no printing.
The printable version is the Shape Cancellation worksheet set on rehabworksheets.com, and there is a free visual scanning worksheet to try first, with no email required.
Is this a test?
A practice activity, not a test or a treatment. The exercises borrow the names of eye movements that clinicians work with (pursuit, saccades, scanning, tracking) and nothing more. A mouse or a touch screen cannot see the eyes, so no number here describes how the eyes moved, and no round compares a person with anyone else. It is not vision therapy, it is not the gaze exercise a physical therapist prescribes for an inner ear problem, and it is not a substitute for evaluation by a qualified professional.
Using it well
- Start slow with the path line showing. The first preset in Follow the dot takes seven seconds to cross the screen, with the path drawn under the dot. Move to a quicker speed when a few rounds in a row come back with every star noticed.
- Keep the head still. The exercises are for the eyes. A head that turns to follow the dot does the eyes' work for them, so sit back, rest the head, and let the eyes travel.
- Use the start line for a left-to-right habit. In Find it, turning on the start line means every search begins with a tap at the left edge. Agreeing a spoken route (left edge, across, down a row, across again) makes the habit easier to keep.
- Change one dial at a time. In Keep track, raise the speed or the number of dots to follow, not both, so the finished screen still reads clearly from one round to the next.
- Stop when the eyes say so. Rounds are short on purpose. A few a day, with a look across the room between them, is a better pattern than a long run. Stop for today if there is dizziness, nausea, a headache or double vision, and mention it to a clinician if it keeps happening.
Common questions
Do these exercises change your vision or the way your eyes move?
No one can promise that, and this tool does not. Practice makes people better at the practiced task, and clinicians use activities like these as one part of a wider plan. There is not good evidence that following a dot on a screen, on its own, changes vision or how the eyes move, so the finished screen shows plain counts and nothing else.
Is Visual Tracking free?
Yes. A free account gives 5 rounds a day across the four exercises on the presets, with every look and comfort setting, plus one round a day with every dial open. Pro adds every dial, unlimited rounds, the PDF summary, the session log and home practice links.
Does the tool track my eyes with the camera?
No. It never asks for the camera, and nothing about you leaves the page except the counts a Pro account chooses to save. Everything it knows comes from taps, which is why the finished screen talks about taps and not eye movements.
What is the difference between Visual Tracking and Visual Search?
Visual Search is one full page of targets to mark among distractors, the way a cancellation sheet works, with the left and right halves counted. Visual Tracking is four shorter exercises built around movement: a dot to follow, dots to jump between, one shape to find per screen, and dots to keep track of while they move.
Is it safe to use after a concussion or with dizziness?
Check with your clinician first, and wait at least two days after a concussion before any screen exercise. Start at the slowest preset, keep rounds short, and stop if dizziness, nausea, a headache or double vision rises more than a little or does not settle within an hour. These are not the gaze exercises a physical therapist prescribes for an inner ear problem.
This exercise supports cognitive stimulation and structured practice. It is not medical treatment or an assessment, and no specific therapeutic outcomes are claimed.