Visual memory test

The classic pattern test of this kind, the Visual Patterns Test, keeps its own figures behind a paywall. The nearest open study gave a version of it on a screen to 40 young adults. Those who did it without a second task recalled patterns of 9.3 black squares on average, with a spread of 2.2^[1]. They waited ten seconds before marking the squares on paper, and their patterns filled half the grid, so the first view of your result sets the squares of your longest pattern beside that average as a mark, never as a rank. Level 1 here lights three squares, and every level two more than its number.

Your own results matter just as much. How we measured this draws your earlier results as short ticks on a ruler. A level that rises over a few weeks tells you more than any single number from a stranger.

The grid is as large as your window holds with squares big enough to tap, never smaller than a finger's width. It starts as three squares by three and grows one row, then one column, then one row again, so that a pattern never fills more than two squares in five. Which squares light is drawn at random for every try, and a new try never repeats an earlier pattern.

Your level is the highest one with at least one try right. If you miss both tries at the first level, your result is zero, which is also a result. If you clear the highest level the grid can hold, the result is marked so that you know your true level may be higher. Taps that come from a script, or from a key held down, are left out and the result says so.

Nothing about your taps leaves this browser: the result is saved here and never goes into a link. You can read about us to see who makes the site.

People rarely remember a pattern square by square. They see shapes in it, such as a line, a corner or a cluster, and remember the shape and where it stood on the grid. A pattern with a clear shape is easier to hold than one scattered evenly.

• Chunking: grouping squares into two or three small shapes holds more than a list of single squares.
• Looking: resting your eyes on the middle of the grid shows every square at once.
• Screen: a larger grid on a bigger screen has more squares to sort, which is harder.
• Rest: a tired or distracted mind lets the pattern fade sooner.

Try to name the shapes you see while the pattern is lit, even silently: a corner, a line, a pair. When the squares go dark, rebuild the shapes before you tap. Take the test on a few different days and watch your own ticks on the ruler, rather than a single level.