Cognitive Baseline

Three short tasks. About four minutes.

A quick, real measure of how your working memory, attention, and processing speed are performing today. Scored against age-stratified norms from published research.

What gets measured
  • Working memory. Recall a sequence of digits in order. Adapted from WAIS Digit Span.
  • Attention & inhibition. Identify the color of a word while ignoring what it says. Stroop interference.
  • Processing speed. Decide whether a target symbol appears in a row of others, as many times as you can in 60 seconds. Adapted from WAIS Symbol Search.

Independently lab-verified · view the third-party lab report →

Task 1 of 3
Task 1 / Working Memory

Digit Span

A sequence of digits appears one at a time. When the input opens, type them back in the same order.

What you’ll see
3
7
1
then
371
Three digits appear one at a time. Type them back in order: 371.
Helps your score
  • Eyes on the screen, no distractions
  • Repeat each digit silently as it appears
  • Type immediately when the input opens
Hurts your score
  • Looking away mid-sequence
  • Writing the digits down somewhere
  • Hesitating once the input opens
Digit Span · Trial 1
Watch the digits
 
Task 2 of 3
Task 2 / Attention

Color & Word

A word appears in a color. Tap the color of the word, not what it says.

What you’ll see
RED
tap
Red Blue Green Yellow
The word reads “RED” but the color is blue. Tap Blue.
Helps your score
  • Respond fast while staying accurate
  • Use the keyboard if it’s quicker: R, B, G, Y
  • Trust the color, not what the word says
Hurts your score
  • Reading the word before checking the color
  • Pausing to be cautious — speed matters
  • Tapping randomly to go faster
Color & Word
Tap the color of the word
 
 
Task 3 of 3
Task 3 / Processing Speed

Symbol Search

A target above, a row of five below. Decide whether the target is in the row. As many as you can in 60 seconds.

What you’ll see
in this row?
Yes
The circle appears in the row. Tap Yes.
Helps your score
  • Scan the row in a single sweep
  • Trust your first instinct
  • Keep answering — no breaks once the timer runs
Hurts your score
  • Deliberating or double-checking
  • Random guessing — wrong answers subtract
  • Slowing down to be sure
60
Trial 1
Is the target in the search row?
Your baseline

Cognitive Index

Scored against age-stratified norms.

Composite
percentile
 

See your full results

Enter your email to unlock your three sub-scores, plus a personalized 8-week guide and a reminder to retest in four weeks.

Working Memory
The brain’s mental scratchpad
 
percentile
Average
LowAverageHigh

What helps this number
  • Consistent 7–9 hours of sleep — the strongest single factor
  • Aerobic exercise, three or more times a week
  • Single-tasking during cognitively demanding work
What hurts this number
  • Sleep deprivation
  • Chronic stress and habitual multitasking
  • Heavy or regular alcohol use
Longest sequence recalled digits· trials completed
Attention & Inhibition
Focus and impulse control under interference
 
percentile
Average
LowAverageHigh

What helps this number
  • Sleep — attention is the function most sensitive to it
  • Mindfulness or meditation practice (well-studied effect)
  • Reducing notification load and deliberate single-tasking
What hurts this number
  • Sleep deprivation
  • Constant context-switching and notification interruption
  • Chronic stress and heavy alcohol use
Congruent median  ms·Incongruent median  ms·Interference cost  ms
Processing Speed
The brain’s clock rate for visual decisions
 
percentile
Average
LowAverageHigh

What helps this number
  • Aerobic exercise — the most-supported lever for this function
  • Reaction-based activities (sports, video games, fast-tempo tasks)
  • Avoiding long sedentary stretches during the day
What hurts this number
  • A sedentary lifestyle
  • Sleep deprivation and poor cardiovascular health
  • Heavy alcohol use
Correct ·Incorrect ·Net in 60s

About these scores. The headline number for each score is your percentile rank for your age group — out of 100 people your age, you scored higher than this many of them. The T-score mentioned in each paragraph is the underlying psychometric measure (mean 50, every 10 points equals one standard deviation). The two are related but not identical because the bell curve compresses at the tails: a T-score of 60 maps to roughly the 84th percentile, 70 to the 98th, 80 to the 99.9th. The composite is computed from the unweighted average of the three sub-score T-scores.

Norms are interpolated from published age-stratified data for Digit Span1, Stroop interference2, and Symbol Search3. Browser-based reaction time measurement adds ~30–50 ms of latency to both Stroop conditions; the latency cancels out in the interference cost (the metric we score), so no correction is applied.

A single test is not a diagnosis. Performance shifts with sleep, time of day, caffeine, stress, and unfamiliarity with the task. The most useful question is your trajectory over time — retake in four weeks under similar conditions and compare.

  1. Wechsler, D. (2008). WAIS-IV Administration and Scoring Manual. NCS Pearson. Plus Bopp, K.L. & Verhaeghen, P. (2005). Aging and verbal memory span: A meta-analysis. Journal of Gerontology, 60B(5), 223–233.
  2. Van der Elst, W., et al. (2006). The Stroop Color-Word Test: Influence of age, sex, and education. Assessment, 13(1), 62–79. Plus MacLeod, C.M. (1991). Half a century of research on the Stroop effect: An integrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 109(2), 163–203.
  3. Wechsler, D. (2008). WAIS-IV Symbol Search subtest norms, halved to reflect the 60-second administration used here (WAIS-IV uses 120 seconds).