Digits appear one at a time. How many can you hold?
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Digits flash on screen one after another, then you type them back. Each success adds a digit and the sequence gets longer until you miss twice.
This is the digit span task used in cognitive testing for over a century. Typical adult forward span is around seven digits, which is where the famous claim about seven items in short-term memory comes from. Backward span — typing the digits in reverse — usually runs about two lower, because it needs manipulation as well as storage.
This version: Type them in order. Your best score is saved in this browser, so you can come back and try to beat it. Nothing is uploaded and no sign-up is needed.
Forward span is typically 5 to 9 digits for adults, centred around 7. Backward span is usually 2 or so lower. Children are lower again, and it rises through adolescence.
Practice improves your score on this task, largely through chunking — grouping digits into meaningful pieces like years or familiar pairs. Whether that transfers to general memory is genuinely disputed, and anyone promising otherwise is overselling it.
Because you must hold the sequence and reverse it at the same time. That is working memory doing two jobs rather than one.