An object location memory test shows several objects on a grid, hides them, then asks where a given object was. In this free online version the grid grows from 3x3 to 7x7 and each level adds one object, so it measures how many object positions you can hold at once.
The clinical foundation of object-location testing was established by Marion Eals & Irwin Silverman (1994) in their pioneering research on spatial cognition, demonstrating that memory for object locations operates as a specialized evolutionary mechanism distinct from mental rotation. Earlier, Edward C. Tolman (1948) established the concept of cognitive mapping, showing how organisms form internal spatial models of their environment.
In working memory architecture, Robert H. Logie (1995) and Alan Baddeley (2000) identified that object-location binding is coordinated by the Episodic Buffer, integrating inputs from the Visual Cache (object identities) with the Inner Scribe (spatial coordinates). Crucially, Steven J. Luck & Edward K. Vogel (1997) proved that feature conjunctions (binding identity to space) impose substantial attentional overhead, while Nelson Cowan (2001) demonstrated that unassisted focal working memory is strictly bounded to 3 to 4 independent item-location pairs.
Following the chronometric standards set out by Woods et al. (2015), this drill utilizes a fixed 1.5-second memorization window and an adaptive difficulty staircase (scaling from 3x3 up to 7x7 matrices) to measure your precise spatial binding threshold.
How this is measured: every event is timestamped with the browser's performance.now() high-resolution clock, entirely on your device -- no score is uploaded. Browser timers are deliberately coarsened as a Spectre mitigation (typically to about 1 ms), and your display quantizes each change to its refresh interval, about 16.7 ms per frame at 60 Hz (Woods et al., 2015). Treat differences smaller than about 5 ms as measurement noise, and compare your own runs on the same hardware rather than against someone else's setup.
Data transparency: SkillDrills collects no aggregate data. Your scores and settings live only in your browser's localStorage and are never uploaded, so this site publishes no user averages, percentiles or player counts. Every figure quoted here comes from the published work in the References panel below.
This drill is a free browser game for practice and interest. It is not a medical device, a diagnostic instrument, or a screening or treatment tool for any condition, and no score here says anything about your health or your memory in a clinical sense. If you have concerns about your memory or thinking, speak to a qualified clinician.