A research-based brain-training exercise. Free, in your browser, no signup to start.
A square lights up in a 3×3 grid, one step at a time.
At the same time, you hear a spoken letter.
Signal when the position or letter matches the one from N steps back.
Most N-Back tools drop you straight into a confusing grid. BrainScale doesn't. Our guided interactive tutorial walks you through your first session step by step, so the exercise clicks before you commit to a full round.
Open the interactive tutorialTrained by people in 120+ countries since 2011.
Dual N-Back is a working-memory exercise developed for cognitive-science research. You track two streams at once — the position of a square and a spoken letter — and decide, each turn, whether the current item matches the one from N steps earlier. As you improve, N grows, and so does the demand on your working memory and attention.
Regular short sessions beat occasional long ones — consistency is what moves N.
Dual N-Back became widely known after studies suggested that training on it could transfer to fluid intelligence — the ability to reason and solve novel problems. The findings are debated, but the task remains one of the most studied working-memory exercises, and it's a genuinely demanding, measurable way to work your attention.
No signup required to start