Short attention and memory games, and nothing more.
Six tasks from attention and memory research, three a day, about five minutes. Your scores never leave your device.
Six games
- InhibitionColour WordName the ink, not the word.Stroop colour-word task
- Working memoryPosition BackIs this square where it was n steps ago?Spatial n-back
- Visual searchNumber GridFind every number, in order, fast.Schulte table
- Sustained attentionTap UnlessTap for every digit except 3.Sustained attention to response task (SART)
- Spatial memoryBlock SpanWatch the blocks light up, then repeat.Corsi block-tapping
- FlexibilityRule SwitchSort by colour or by shape, as the cue says.Colour/shape task switching
How a session works
- 3
- games a day, picked by rotation, so two days cover all six.
- 5
- minutes, give or take. Each game is a single round of a minute or two.
- 10
- levels per game. Each one moves up or down by one after every round, based on how that round went.
What the evidence says
Practise these tasks and you will get better at them. That part is well established.
Carry-over to anything else, like work, school or everyday memory, is another matter. It is modest at best and still argued about, and the best-controlled studies find little or nothing beyond the trained tasks.
So UTOK makes no claims about intelligence, brain age or protection from decline. It shows you your own numbers on six well-studied tasks. It promises nothing beyond that. The studies, with references.
On your phone
An iPhone and iPad version with the same six games is waiting on App Store review. It works offline, has no account and no in-app purchases, and keeps its own progress on the phone.