What “cognitive ability” means here

When people say “cognition,” they often mean something mystical. Like intelligence is a glowing orb inside your skull. In practice, cognition is a set of functions. Some are fast and automatic. Some are slow and deliberate. Most of what matters is whether you can hold information, aim attention, and execute under time pressure.

Memism focuses on abilities you can actually measure with repeatable tasks. That means outputs like span, accuracy, and reaction time. These are imperfect proxies, but they are useful ones. Especially when you stop treating a single number as a verdict and start treating it as a sample.

The core domains Memism samples

Most of the current test set leans on three practical domains. Not because they are everything, but because they are foundational.

• Working memory: holding information in mind and doing something with it, without losing the thread.
• Attention: selecting what matters, inhibiting what does not, and sustaining focus long enough to finish.
• Processing speed: how quickly you can perceive, decide, and respond when the clock is running.

You will notice these abilities everywhere once you start looking. They show up in reading, conversation, learning, driving, and mental math. They also show up when you are tired, stressed, overstimulated, or “fine” but quietly depleted.

The current test battery

Right now Memism includes eight tests. Each is a different angle on the same central question: what can you hold, what can you control, and what can you execute quickly and reliably.

• Digit Span: classic span testing, with multiple variants.
• Visual Memory: short-term visual pattern retention under increasing load.
• Spatial Span (Corsi-style): spatial sequencing and location memory.
• Reaction Time: simple speed of response and basic speed stability.
• Dual N-Back: working memory with interference, update demands, and sustained attention.
• Verbal Memory: word-based recognition and retention under repetition.
• Arithmetic: mental calculation under time pressure (a nice mix of working memory and speed).
• Letter-Number Sequencing: ordering and reformatting information while holding it online.

Why variants matter

You can change parameters in many of these tasks. That is not just a feature. It is part of the measurement philosophy. If you only ever test one narrow slice, you learn one narrow thing.

Take Digit Span. You can do it forward. You can do it backward. You can do it sequencing. You can do it additive. Those variants stress slightly different mechanisms. Forward span leans on storage. Backward and sequencing lean on manipulation and control. Additive adds another layer: transformation.

Same person, different demand. That is often where the interesting signal lives.

What your scores are, and what they are not

Memism scores are not your identity. They are not “IQ.” They are not a final judgment. They are measurements of performance on specific tasks, on a specific day, in a specific state.

That said, they are not meaningless. If you measure the same thing repeatedly, under consistent conditions, patterns emerge. You start to see your baseline. You see your volatility. You see what happens when you sleep well, when you don’t, when life is calm, when life is chaos.

Longitudinal tracking

Memism is built around repeated measurement. Not because repetition is glamorous, but because it is honest. One run can be noise. A week is a hint. A month starts to speak. A year tells the truth.

When you track over time, you can ask better questions. Not “am I smart?” but “what changes me?” What makes me sharper? What makes me sloppy? What stabilizes me? What makes me brittle?

Nootropics as a variable

Memism also includes nootropics tracking, because many people are already experimenting, just without structure. The problem is not curiosity. The problem is interpretation.

If you log what you take, and you also measure your performance, you can begin to separate story from signal. Over time you can see whether a compound tends to shift your scores, whether it changes your variability, and whether it helps one domain while quietly degrading another.

This is not medical advice, and Memism is not a clinic. It is a measurement environment. It gives you a way to run cleaner self-experiments, and a way to keep yourself honest.

What to do next

If you are new, start with one or two tasks and repeat them for a week. Keep conditions boring. Same time of day if you can. Same setup. Same expectations.

Then read the next article, because it will save you from the most common mistake people make: treating fluctuation as failure.