Sequence Memory

What is a sequence memory test?

A grid of tiles lights up in a pattern and you repeat it back. Get it right and the pattern grows by one. Get it wrong and the test ends. The number you finish on is how many steps of a visual-spatial sequence you can hold and reproduce, which is a specific and surprisingly narrow slice of memory.

This is working memory rather than long-term memory. Working memory is the small, fast, extremely limited store you use to hold something for a few seconds while you act on it, and it is famously capped for most people at somewhere around seven items. What makes the sequence version harder than remembering seven words is that position and order both have to be held at once.

How to play

1. Watch the tiles flash in order.
2. Click them back in the same order.
3. Each correct round adds one more step.
4. One mistake ends the run. Your level and percentile are shown.

What counts as a good level?

Level 8 is roughly the median. Getting past 10 puts you in the top quarter, past 12 in the top fifteen percent, and past 14 is unusual. Anyone reaching the high teens is almost certainly using a chunking strategy rather than raw recall, which is entirely fair and is the point at which the test stops measuring capacity and starts measuring technique.

How to get further

• Chunk the pattern. Three groups of three are far easier to hold than nine separate items. This is the single biggest gain available.
• Turn it into a shape. Reading the sequence as a path that draws a letter or a route uses spatial memory instead of list memory, and spatial memory has more room.
• Say it out loud or under your breath. Adding a verbal channel to a visual one gives you two copies to recall from.
• Do not rush the replay. The test is not timed. Rushing is the most common cause of a fumbled tile on a sequence you actually knew.
• Keep your eyes still. Tracking each flash with your gaze fragments the pattern. Looking at the centre keeps it whole.

The other four tests

Sequence Memory sits alongside Number Memory, which tests the same capacity through digits rather than positions, and the Chimp Test, which removes the order-reveal entirely and is harder for it. Reaction Time and Aim Trainer measure speed rather than memory. Comparing your sequence and number scores is informative, since people are usually noticeably stronger at one than the other.