Most approaches to detecting changes in functional brain images assume that activations are focal or very localized. However, the brain's response to cognitive of sensorimotor challenge may be spatially or anatomically distributed. In this paper we consider the usefulness of a test based on the mean sum of squares of statistical parametric maps. The performance of this test is evaluated using simulated and real data and is compared to the gamma 2 test, a test of the size of the activated region, and a focal activation test based on the intensity of local maxima. We demonstrate that the mean sum of squares test is more sensitive to nonfocal signals and propose that it could be used to complement approaches that are more sensitive to focal activations.