# What Is a Good Visual Memory Score? — Get My Test Score > The visual memory test flashes a grid of tiles to remember. Learn what visual short-term memory can hold, what a good level is, and how players on this site compare. Source: https://getmytestscore.co.uk/what-is-a-good-visual-memory-score --- [Home](/) › [Guides](/guides) › What Is a Good Visual Memory Score? # What Is a Good Visual Memory Score? On the visual memory test here, reaching **level 8 is average, level 12 excellent and level 15+ exceptional**. Each level flashes a set of tiles in a grid and asks you to click them back from memory; the grid grows and the number of tiles rises as you progress, and the run ends after three failed levels. Visual short-term memory is much smaller than most people expect — around **three to four objects** held precisely — so high levels are reached by seeing the tiles as shapes and patterns rather than as separate squares. Here is what the test measures and how to read your level. [Take the visual memory test — free, no sign-up](/visual-memory-test) ## What the visual memory test measures This is a spatial working memory task: the tiles are not different from one another, so what you must store is _where_ they were. Research using change-detection tasks (Luck and Vogel's 1997 studies and hundreds since) finds that people hold roughly three to four items in visual working memory at full precision, and that this capacity is one of the strongest single correlates of general fluid intelligence. The reason players reach levels far beyond four tiles is _chunking_: a row of three lit tiles is one object, a diagonal is one object, an L-shape is one object. The test therefore measures capacity plus how quickly you organise what you see. ## What counts as a good visual memory score? Because the grid grows with the level, the level number is easier to interpret than a tile count. On this site level 4 is where most first attempts end, 8 is average, 12 excellent and 15+ exceptional. Visual working memory capacity develops through childhood, peaks around age 20, and declines slowly and steadily from the thirties — one of the clearer age effects in cognitive testing — although strategy compensates a great deal. Video-game players, architects and radiologists tend to score higher, not because their raw capacity is larger but because they have practised encoding layouts as wholes. ## Strategy is most of the score The tiles are shown for only a moment, so there is no time to count or rehearse them one by one. Players who reach high levels describe seeing the lit tiles as a single figure — a letter, an arrow, a constellation — and then clicking the figure. Symmetry helps; so does noticing which tiles are _not_ lit when most of a row is. Errors cluster at the edges of the grid and on isolated single tiles that do not belong to any shape, so give those a deliberate extra glance. ## How to improve your visual memory score - **See shapes, not squares.** Name the figure to yourself ("T", "staircase") before the tiles disappear. - **Anchor on the grid.** Note tiles by row and column relative to corners and the centre, not in isolation. - **Click the pattern in one sweep.** Re-inspecting the grid while clicking lets the image fade. - **Keep the screen still and close.** Small tiles at the edge of vision are the ones you will miss. - **Rest between runs.** Visual working memory is quick to tire; scores fall after ten minutes of continuous attempts. ## Score bands on the visual memory test These are the bands the [visual memory test](/visual-memory-test) on this site uses for its result screen. | Score | Band | | --- | --- | | 15+ level | Exceptional | | 12–14 level | Excellent | | 8–11 level | Average | | 4–7 level | Developing | | 0–3 level | Warming Up | ## How players on this site compare Every completed [visual memory test](/visual-memory-test) adds an anonymous result to this site's histogram. This page shows the median and distribution once **20** results have been recorded; until then the bands above are the guide. The live figures are always on the [benchmarks page](/benchmarks) and at `/api/data/norms`. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is a good visual memory score? On this site’s tile test, level 8 is average, 12 excellent and 15 or above exceptional. Underlying visual working memory holds about three to four items precisely; higher levels come from grouping tiles into shapes. ### How many items can visual memory hold? Roughly three to four objects at full precision, according to decades of change-detection research. That capacity is one of the strongest single correlates of fluid intelligence. ### Does visual memory decline with age? Yes, gradually from the thirties onward, more noticeably than verbal memory. Strategy — encoding layouts as shapes — compensates for much of the decline. ## Related guides - [What Is a Good Sequence Memory Score?](/what-is-a-good-sequence-memory-score) - [What Is a Good Number Memory Score? Digit Span Explained](/what-is-a-good-number-memory-score) - [What Is a Good Verbal Memory Score?](/what-is-a-good-verbal-memory-score) - [Benchmarks: how scores on this site are distributed](/benchmarks) - [All free tests](/free-tests) Site figures are anonymous results recorded on getmytestscore.co.uk and describe this site's players only; they are not clinical norms and should not be used for diagnosis. Research figures are cited from peer-reviewed sources and summarised in plain English. --- _Get My Test Score — see [/llms.txt](https://getmytestscore.co.uk/llms.txt) for the full site map and machine-readable endpoints._