Sequence Memory Test

Remembering where things were, and in what order, is the job of visuospatial short-term memory. It is what you use to retrace a route through an unfamiliar building, to keep track of pieces on a board, or to remember which windows you had open a moment ago. Psychologists have measured it for more than fifty years with a simple device: a board of blocks, a sequence tapped out by the examiner, and the question of how long a sequence a person can tap back. The best known version is the block-tapping task that Philip Corsi devised at McGill University in the early 1970s, and the electronic game Simon later made the same idea a toy.

This test follows the game's design rather than the clinic's. In the Corsi task each length gets a new sequence, and the examiner moves up a length after a correct reply. Here there is one sequence for the whole run: every round replays it from the start and adds one square at the end. Each square stays lit for half a second and the next one lights as it goes dark, the timing is taken from the clock so that a slow phone and a fast computer show exactly the same sequence, and the squares are chosen at random for every run, never the same square twice in a row. Taps or clicks while the sequence is playing are ignored, so the only way to score is to repeat it afterwards.

Because the sequence builds on itself, the task rewards more than raw capacity. Each round you only have to fit one new position into a sequence you have already rehearsed, and research on repeated sequences shows that people learn them as they go, often without noticing. That is why levels here usually run higher than spans on the Corsi test, where healthy adults typically manage about six blocks. The path matters too: in block-tapping studies, sequences whose path crosses itself are harder to hold than smooth ones of the same length, so luck in the order the squares come up moves a level a little.

Your level is compared with the levels of tens of thousands of players. The clinical Corsi norms would not do, because setting a score from this procedure against them would make almost everyone look above average. The players are a self-selected crowd rather than a representative sample, so read the comparison as a rough guide. Every result here is recorded anonymously with the kind of device it was played on, so that in time phones and computers can each be compared on their own.

Short-term memory varies from moment to moment. Tiredness, distraction and a single lapse of attention can end a run early, and the one-mistake rule means one unlucky round decides the score. If you want a steadier figure, take the test two or three times and look at your typical level rather than your best. This is a game and a quick measure of how your memory is working today, not a clinical assessment.

References

• Kessels, R. P. C., van Zandvoort, M. J. E., Postma, A., Kappelle, L. J., & de Haan, E. H. F. (2000). The Corsi block-tapping task: Standardization and normative data. Applied Neuropsychology, 7(4), 252-258.
• Berch, D. B., Krikorian, R., & Huha, E. M. (1998). The Corsi block-tapping task: Methodological and theoretical considerations. Brain and Cognition, 38(3), 317-338.
• Couture, M., & Tremblay, S. (2006). Exploring the characteristics of the visuospatial Hebb repetition effect. Memory & Cognition, 34(8), 1720-1729.
• Busch, R. M., Farrell, K., Lisdahl-Medina, K., & Krikorian, R. (2005). Corsi block-tapping task performance as a function of path configuration. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 27(1), 127-134.

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