Sequence Memory Test
A 3x3 grid flashes a pattern one tile at a time; you click it back, each level adds a step, and one wrong click ends the run.
Free in your browser — no download, no sign up. Scores stay on your device.
How it works
- Nine tiles in a 3x3 grid. The test flashes a sequence, one tile at a time — level one is a single flash.
- Repeat the sequence by clicking the same tiles in the same order. Get it right and the next level begins.
- Each new level replays the entire sequence you just did and adds one step to the end. Level eight is eight flashes; you clear it or you don't.
- One wrong click ends the test. No retries mid-run, no partial credit — your score is the longest sequence you completed in full.
- Your best score stays in your browser's local storage. Free, no download, no sign up, no account.
What is a good sequence memory score?
We have not run a norming study and we are not going to invent one, so this page will not tell you that you are in the top 12% of humans. What the research literature offers as a reference point: this test is a close cousin of the Corsi block-tapping test, a spatial-span task developed by Philip Corsi at McGill University in the early 1970s and still used in neuropsychological assessment, on which healthy adults typically manage spans of around five to seven items.
Scores here run higher than that, for an honest mechanical reason: a Corsi trial shows you each sequence once, while a Simon-style test replays the whole sequence at every level. By the time you face nine steps you have already watched the first eight several times, and every replay is a free rehearsal. That is why double-digit levels are reachable with practice here — and why comparing this number to a clinical span score would be flattering yourself.
The benchmark that actually means something is your own previous best, which sits in your browser's local storage waiting to be embarrassed.
The 1978 machine this descends from
The rule — repeat what I played, then I add one — comes from Simon, the disc-shaped electronic game Milton Bradley released in 1978, invented by Ralph Baer and Howard Morrison. Baer had already built the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey; Milton Bradley launched his memory game with a midnight party at Studio 54. Four lit buttons, four tones, and a rule good enough that nobody has improved it in almost fifty years.
This version has nine tiles instead of four and lives in a browser tab instead of a plastic disc, but the contract is unchanged: the machine shows you slightly more than you can comfortably hold, on every level, until it wins. The original could technically be beaten — repeat all 31 steps at its hardest setting and Simon conceded with a razz — but for almost everyone, almost every night, the machine won. It still does.
What a growing sequence actually tests
Ordered visual-spatial working memory: not just which tiles lit up, but the order they lit up in. Psychologists have been putting numbers on this kind of capacity since George Miller's 1956 paper 'The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two'; later work, notably Nelson Cowan's, put the practical limit closer to four chunks. The word doing the work in both estimates is chunks — which is also the entire strategy section of this page.
Grouping beats memorizing. Nine individual tiles is past everyone's limit; three small shapes — a corner run, a diagonal, an L along the edge — is three chunks, and three chunks is comfortable. People who post large scores are not holding thirty separate positions; they are holding a handful of shapes and unpacking them on demand.
The sudden-death rule is what keeps the score honest. One wrong click ends the test, so a 12 means you actually held twelve steps in order — not that you flailed through on retries. It makes the number smaller and more real, which is the trade this site keeps making.
FAQ
What does the sequence memory test measure?
Ordered visual-spatial working memory: holding not just which tiles flashed but the order they flashed in, and stretching that hold by one step per level. It is a browser-game cousin of the Corsi block-tapping test that neuropsychologists use, not a clinical instrument. It also deliberately measures memory and nothing else — there is no speed pressure. If you want your focus measured instead, the Attention Span Test on this site does that in about two minutes.
What is a good sequence memory score?
We do not publish percentiles, because we have not normed this test against a population and inventing that number would be lying. For scale: the Corsi block-tapping literature puts typical adult spatial spans around five to seven items, and Simon-style tests score higher than that because every level replays the whole sequence, which is built-in rehearsal. Beat your own saved best — that is the one comparison with clean data behind it.
Is this the same as the Simon game?
Same rule, more tiles. Simon — released by Milton Bradley in 1978, invented by Ralph Baer and Howard Morrison — has four lit buttons; this test has nine tiles on a grid, which makes each step harder to encode and the sequences less singable. The contract is identical: the machine plays the sequence, you repeat it, the machine adds one.
Does the sequence memory test measure IQ?
No. It measures how you did with nine tiles today, which is shaped by sleep, caffeine, stress, and how many browser tabs are fighting for your attention. It is not an IQ test and it cannot diagnose memory problems. If your memory genuinely worries you, that is a conversation for a clinician, not a tile game.
How do I get a higher sequence memory score?
Chunk. Do not memorize nine tiles; memorize three shapes — a corner run, a diagonal, an L along the edge. Rehearse during the playback rather than after it, and say the positions to yourself if that helps; most people's visual memory happily takes dictation from their inner voice. Beyond technique it is the boring basics — sleep, breaks, one thing at a time — and plain practice, which mostly makes you better at this specific test. We make no claims that practicing here improves your memory anywhere else.
How is the sequence memory test different from the chimp test?
The chimp test — famous from the Ayumu research at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute, where a chimpanzee outperformed university students — shows you everything at once and then masks it: one glance, one snapshot. A sequence memory test feeds you positions one at a time and grows the load every level, so it tests memory for order across time rather than a single burst of encoding. Different skill, different failure: chimp test runs die to a rushed glance, sequence runs die to one tile in the middle you never really saw.
Is the sequence memory test free?
Yes. Free in your browser, no download, no sign up, no account. It is a burger site.
Does the test save my scores?
Your best score is kept in your browser's local storage and never leaves your machine — there is no account and nothing is uploaded, which also means clearing your browser data clears your record. When you want to measure something other than memory, the reaction time test, CPS test, and typing test live on this site too.
The Reflex Lab
The Reflex Lab — nine instruments that measure you. Scores stay in your browser.
- Reaction Time Test — median of 5, in ms
- CPS Test — clicks per second
- Spacebar Counter — presses, counted
- Aim Trainer — 30 targets, timed
- Typing Test — words per minute
- Number Memory Test — digits before you break
- Visual Memory Test — tiles, from memory
- Sequence Memory Test — one step longer each time (this page)
- Chimp Test — you, versus Ayumu
For the longer version of being measured, take the two-minute attention span test — scored out of 100.