About Sweet Sort

A short, replayable game about noticing when the rules have changed, built as a playful cousin of two classic tests of cognitive flexibility.

Why cognitive flexibility

The research of C.BIRD's Dr. Abigail Livny-Ezer and Jenya Lerer examines cognitive flexibility, the ability to change strategy, shift attention and adapt when rules or circumstances change, as a possible protective factor against chronic pain. Studies have shown that patients with higher cognitive flexibility are more resilient and cope better with pain.

From clinical tests to play

Two established measures inspired the game: the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the CANTAB Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift. Both ask you to sort by a hidden rule, then quietly change the rule and watch how you adapt. Sweet Sort translates that idea into actual play rather than copying the test.

The big idea

Could a short, replayable game train set-shifting and adaptive problem-solving without teaching someone to pass a specific clinical test? The key is that the game never announces a change. A simple mechanic might reward responding to red circles; at some point the rule quietly becomes blue, with no cue that anything has shifted.

A richer version could silently change the relevant feature, action, goal or environmental logic, so that noticing the shift and re-deriving the rule is the core challenge.

What we built

• One mechanic. A card of sweets appears in the middle. A hidden rule, color, shape or number, decides which pile it belongs on. You slide it and get instant feedback: a chime or a buzz.
• Silent shifts. After a run of correct sorts the rule changes. The first level celebrates the change so you learn the loop. From level 2 on, nothing on screen gives it away. Sensing that your strategy stopped working is the whole game.
• Rising pressure. Later levels change the rule after an unpredictable number of sorts, grow the board from four piles to six with new colors and shapes, and put a shrinking clock on every card.
• A game, not a test. A guided tutorial, streak multipliers, combo callouts and a candy world make it something you want to replay, which is what makes repeated practice possible.
• Measurement built in. Every run ends with accuracy, best streak, rules cracked and how often the old rule was still being applied, the perseverative errors that clinical tests look for.

What it lets patients do

• Practice set-shifting in sessions of a couple of minutes, on a phone, with nothing to install or set up.
• Build up difficulty at their own pace. Each level unlocks the next, and best scores are kept on the device.
• Meet a test-like task as play, which takes away the anxiety and fatigue that make test performance noisy.

Learn more

• Cognitive flexibility and pain resilience, the problem brief from the game jam.
• C.BIRD, the Clinical Brain Imaging R&D Center at Sheba, whose research the game builds on.

Team

• DevelopersAriel Laden and Hadar Weiss
• Reviewing scientistsDr. Abigail Livny-Ezer and Jenya Lerer, C.BIRD, Clinical Brain Imaging R&D Center