Sequence memory test

This test measures visuospatial working memory: how many locations, and their order, you can keep in mind for a short time. It's a different skill from remembering numbers. With digits your inner voice helps (“seven-four-nine”); here you have to remember places and the path between them, which relies on a separate system often called the visuospatial sketchpad.

The classic lab version is the Corsi block-tapping task: an examiner taps irregularly placed blocks one after another and you repeat the sequence. Ours is a simplified browser version with nine squares in a regular 3×3 grid, and the sequence grows by one step every round. The same square can appear more than once, which adds a twist.

Your score is the length of the longest sequence you repeated without error. If you got the seven-step sequence but slipped on eight, you score 7.

Adult norms for the Corsi task (Kessels and colleagues, 2000, summarized on PsyToolkit) put the average span at 6.2 steps with a standard deviation of 1.3. The percentile band under your result uses that mean and spread.

An important caveat: our grid isn't the Corsi layout. A regular 3×3 grid makes it easier to see shapes – rows, diagonals, zigzags – and each round replays the previous sequence plus one new step, so the start is already familiar. Scores here therefore tend to run higher than in the lab, and the band is only a rough comparison with a “weak estimate” label.

For tracking your own progress, your leaderboard and history are much better: measured on the same device in similar conditions, real improvement shows up clearly.

• See it as a path: don't memorize separate squares – remember the line you'd trace with your finger. Many people see a shape in it: an L, a zigzag, a roof.
• Name the squares: think of the grid as a phone keypad (1–9). The sequence becomes a string of digits you can rehearse with your inner voice, and two memory systems working together beat one.
• Chunk it: split long sequences into groups of three or four. The first group is familiar from the last round, so focus on the end.
• Don't hurry: there's no time limit when you answer. Fast clicking causes finger slips, not memory slips.
• Watch for repeats: when the same square flashes twice, note it explicitly (“middle twice”) – it's the most common source of mistakes.

Spatial memory is especially vulnerable to distraction: look away during the flashes and part of the sequence is gone instantly. Test yourself somewhere quiet, when you're rested, and avoid chatting at the same time.

Your device matters too. On a phone the grid is smaller, so it's easier to tap the wrong square, and your thumb can hide a square while it flashes. A mouse and a laptop trackpad feel different as well, so keeping a leaderboard per device makes sense. The test also works with a keyboard: the squares are buttons, so you can move with Tab and choose with Enter.

This is a fun self-check, not a medical or psychological assessment. Clinical Corsi testing is done by a professional under standardized conditions, and an online game doesn't replace it.

Remembering spatial order is part of everyday life, even if we rarely notice it. You use it to remember the route from the elevator to an office in a new building, to draw your phone's unlock pattern, to follow the steps of a dance or a workout, or to recall which drawer holds what while you cook. Musicians, athletes and chess players lean on it heavily, which is why they often score above average here – not necessarily because their memory is better, but because they're practiced at spotting patterns. Comparing your sequence and number memory scores is revealing too: people who think in words tend to do better with digits, people who think in pictures with places.

When a run ends, the Share result link button gives you a link that shows a preview image with your score when pasted. Whoever opens it lands here with a challenge banner and can try to beat you. The link only contains the score; there's no account and nothing is stored on a server.

If numbers are more your thing, try the number memory test. The chimp test also measures spatial working memory, but there you see all the positions at once and recall the order of numbers. The verbal memory test works with words, and the visual memory game runs on the memory test hub alongside the others.