See a letter or shape
Spot an L, a T or a diagonal line in the lit squares.
MEMORY WITHOUT WORDS
You can't say a pattern under your breath
With digits or words you can rehearse silently. A scatter of squares has no name, so it has to live as a picture in your mind, your visual memory, working on its own.
7 · 3 · 9
Words can be rehearsed
“seven, three, nine…” keeps them alive.
Patterns must be seen
Only a mental image can hold them.
Four ways to see more in one glance
Strong players don't remember squares. They remember shapes the squares make.
Split into quarters
Remember each corner of the grid as its own small pattern.
Notice the empty spaces
Sometimes the gaps make a simpler shape than the squares.
Look, then close your eyes
Hold the after-image for a beat before you start tapping.
INSIDE YOUR BRAIN
A snapshot, held for seconds
3 regions share the work in this game. Pick one to see its job.
1
Based on Gray's Anatomy, fig. 728 (public domain)
Grid tests like this one grew from work in the 1970s showing that visual short-term memory holds only a few items. In 1997 Sergio Della Sala and colleagues published the Visual Patterns Test, still used in clinics today.
SourcesPhillips, W. A. (1974). On the distinction between sensory storage and short-term visual memory. Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 283–290.Della Sala, S., Gray, C., Baddeley, A. & Wilson, L. (1997). The Visual Patterns Test. Thames Valley Test Company.Luck, S. J. & Vogel, E. K. (1997). The capacity of visual working memory for features and conjunctions. Nature, 390, 279–281.
WHAT THIS GAME TRAINS
Holding a picture of a pattern
A grid of tiles lights up for a moment, then disappears. Tap them back. It trains how much visual pattern you can hold in one glance.
corestrongsomelight
coreVisual short-term memoryHolding a pattern after it disappears.
strongSpatial memoryRemembering where each tile was.
someChunkingSeeing shapes in the pattern instead of single tiles.
someAttentionTaking in the whole grid at once.
THE SAME SKILL, ELSEWHERE
Three places this skill turns up
Each one leans on a different part of what the game trains.
More memory games
All 40 games →▢ ▣ ▢
Corsi Blocks3 min
Tap blocks back in the order they lit.
After Pattern MemoryAdds order: remember not just where, but when.
Play Corsi Blocks →○○●○○
Visual Search3 min
Find the red circle fast.
After Pattern MemoryUses the same visual system to scan instead of store.
Play Visual Search →soup · tiger
Word List Recall4 min
Twelve words, then recall them.
After Pattern MemorySwitches to words you can rehearse aloud.
Play Word List Recall →☺ → Maya
Face–Name Pairs4 min
Meet faces, then recall names.
After Pattern MemoryLinks a picture to a word, not just a picture.
Play Face–Name Pairs →