Verbal Memory Test

It measures recognition memory for words: telling apart the words you have already met in this run from new ones. Recognition is easier than recall, because you only have to say whether something is familiar, not bring it back yourself. The hard part here is that the list keeps growing, so new words and old ones get harder to keep apart.

Psychologists call this design a continuous recognition task. One of the early studies used it with a long stream of three-digit numbers, each judged as new or seen before, to estimate how much people can keep track of over a long series [1].

• One word appears at a time. Tap Seen if it already came up in this test, or New if it didn't.
• About 50% of the words, once a few have been shown, are repeats. A repeat can come back soon or much later.
• Every mistake costs a life, and you have 3. Your score is how many words you answered right before the last life was gone.
• Each run draws a fresh set of everyday words, so no two runs are the same.

A higher score means you kept more words apart for longer. Runs vary: a few repeats that come back right after their first showing make a run easier, and one early slip makes it shorter. Several runs tell you more than one.

Playing often also makes the word list itself familiar, which can make "new" words feel seen. If your scores drop after many runs in a row, take a break and come back another day.

For numbers, try the number memory test; for places on a grid, the visual memory test.