Test four complementary working-memory task types in one sitting: backward digit span, reverse spatial span, reading span, and 2-back. Get an overall Cognitive Train score plus four task results.
START TEST →🧠 Working Memory Tests & Exercises
Choose a focused task when you want to practice or measure one particular working-memory demand. The seven tools below remain separate because they challenge different combinations of storage, manipulation, processing, and updating.
N-Back Test
Track a continuous stream and respond when the current item matches one shown N steps earlier. Focuses on continuous monitoring and updating.
Digit Span Test
Remember digit sequences in forward or backward order. Backward recall adds an active manipulation demand instead of simple same-order reproduction.
Word Span Test
Remember and recall sequences of words in order. Higher difficulty includes reverse recall, adding a verbal manipulation demand.
Spatial Span Test
Watch a sequence of grid locations and reproduce the path. A focused test of visuospatial sequence memory using a Corsi-style format.
Reading Span Test
Judge sentences while remembering highlighted words. A complex-span task that combines memory storage with ongoing processing.
Updating Span Test
Track a changing stream and retain the items required by the current rule. Focuses on selective updating and keeping relevant information current.
Number Memory Test
Memorize a briefly presented number and type it back. A storage-heavy numeric memory task that complements the more manipulation-heavy tools above.
📘 Working Memory Guide
What is working memory?
Working memory is the temporary mental workspace used when information has to remain available while you reason, compare, calculate, follow instructions, or update what matters. It overlaps with short-term storage, but many working-memory tasks add a second demand: the information must be reorganized, processed alongside something else, or continually replaced as new information arrives.
Because those demands are different, there is no single browser task that captures every aspect equally well. The Working Memory Test is the broad starting point on Cognitive Train, while the focused tools below let you isolate particular task formats.
Which working memory tool should you choose?
- For a broad first check: start with the Working Memory Test. It combines four complementary task formats in one abbreviated assessment.
- For continuous updating: use the N-Back Test. Each new item changes which earlier item must be compared with the present one.
- For verbal or numerical manipulation: use the Digit Span Test and select backward recall when you want the added requirement of reversing the sequence.
- For verbal word span: use the Word Span Test. It uses words rather than digits and includes reverse recall at higher difficulty.
- For visuospatial span: use the Spatial Span Test. It replaces verbal material with a sequence of locations on a grid.
- For memory under concurrent processing: use the Reading Span Test. You must process sentences while keeping target words available for later ordered recall.
- For selective updating: use the Updating Span Test. It emphasizes keeping the currently relevant items while a longer stream continues.
- For a storage-heavy numeric challenge: use the Number Memory Test. It is useful as an adjacent measure of how much numerical information you can hold briefly, without the same manipulation demand as backward span or updating tasks.
How to use these tools for practice
Repeat the same task under reasonably consistent conditions if you want to track practice effects. Increase difficulty when the current level becomes reliably manageable, and compare your own results across sessions rather than treating a single browser score as a clinical or population norm.
Practice can improve performance on the task you train, and some closely related skills may improve with it. Evidence for broad transfer to unrelated abilities is less consistent, so Cognitive Train does not treat working-memory exercises as a guaranteed way to raise general intelligence or transform everyday cognition.
📚 Learn About Working Memory
Explore the science and practical side of working memory, including what it is, how it differs from short-term memory, and what repeated practice can realistically do.
What Is Working Memory?
Learn how the brain temporarily holds information available while you reason, follow steps, and solve problems.
🔄 Memory SystemsWorking Memory vs Short-Term Memory
See where temporary storage and active processing overlap—and why the terms are not always interchangeable.
🏋️ ExercisesWorking Memory Exercises That Actually Work
Compare common working-memory exercise formats and what kinds of improvement they are designed to target.
📈 ImprovementHow to Improve Working Memory
Review practical approaches to working-memory performance and the limits of what evidence on repeated practice can support.