Three or four figures are shown, each holding a circle or a square in one hand and either facing you or facing away. A short rule is read out, for example “facing you, left hand, circle”, and you count how many figures match all three parts, then key 0 to 3. The catch is that “left hand” means the figure’s own hand: a figure facing you is mirrored, so its left hand is on your right, while a figure facing away lines up with you, its left hand on your left. Holding the spoken rule while you re-map each figure is the skill. Choose Easy, Medium or Hard to add a fourth figure, bring in closer decoys and tighten the clock.
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Audio figure counting measures a left/right spatial re-mapping held together with working memory and listening. You hear a three-part rule, a facing, a hand and a shape, and count the figures that match it, re-mapping each figure's own hand to the side you actually see: a figure facing you is mirrored, so its left hand is on your right, while a figure facing away lines up with you. Judging left and right on a figure that faces you is the part most people find hard, and doing it from a heard rule loads listening at the same time.
Do not count by the side of the picture. Take each figure in a fixed order: first decide if it faces you or away, then re-map. Facing you is a mirror, like a person opposite you, so their left hand is on your right; facing away lines up with you, so their left hand is on your left. Only once the hand is re-mapped do you check the shape. Fixing the facing first stops the two mistakes that cost most marks.
The most tempting miscount is a figure with the right facing and the right shape but holding it in the OTHER hand, so it sits on the seductive side of the picture. It is not a match. It is placed to catch anyone who counts by where the shape appears instead of re-mapping the hand, and it is exactly why the facing-away figures are worth double-checking.
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