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Dual n-back test: free online working memory game

Dual n-back shows a square on a grid and says a letter at the same time. Press when either one matches what came N steps earlier. It is a hard, well-known working memory task; play it here free, from 1-back to 4-back.

By Riyad, maker of Keen at Oyrial · Updated 8 November 2026

Pick a level, turn your sound on, and press the buttons (or A and L on a keyboard) when you see or hear a match. One round takes about a minute. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How do you play dual n-back?

• Every 3 seconds one square lights up on a 3 by 3 grid, and a voice says one letter.
• In 2-back, press Position match if the square is in the same place as two turns ago. Press Letter match if the letter is the same as two turns ago. Sometimes both match; press both.
• 1-back compares with the turn just before. 3-back and 4-back go further back and get hard fast.
• Single mode drops the letters, so you only track squares. Start there if dual feels like too much.

What does your score mean?

Your score for each stream is the matches you caught, divided by everything that counted: catches, misses and presses when there was no match. Pressing all the time does not help. Many n-back trainers move you up a level at about 80% and down under about 50%, and this page gives the same advice. A single round is noisy: tiredness, sound off or a busy room all cost points.

N-back is a research task, not a medical one. It cannot tell you whether anything is wrong with your memory. If memory problems affect your daily life, see a doctor.

Does dual n-back training work?

The task goes back to Wayne Kirchner in 1958. It became famous in 2008, when a study reported that practising dual n-back raised scores on a reasoning test (Jaeggi and others, 2008). Later work was mixed. A 2015 meta-analysis found a small gain on reasoning tests (Au and others, 2015), while a review of working memory training found people got better at the trained tasks but saw little lasting carry-over to other skills (Melby-Lervåg and Hulme, 2013).

The fair summary: you will get better at n-back. If what you want is to stop forgetting names, numbers or where you put your keys, it works better to practise those things directly, with a technique. Our free memory test lets you try one, and the guide on how to remember names explains another.