Self-Ordered Search Test — Free Token Search for Working Memory and Strategy

In a self-ordered search you choose your own order of searching while continually updating where you have already looked. The screen shows 4, 6 or 8 boxes with a token hidden in one of them. You open boxes until you find it; the next token is then hidden in a different box, and a box that has already yielded a token never hides another. The level ends once you have found as many tokens as there are boxes.

The task follows the self-ordered paradigm introduced by Petrides and Milner in 1982 and targets the updating and planning side of working memory, functions closely tied to the frontal lobes. Unlike simply memorizing locations, you must fold the outcome of your own actions into memory and organize what to do next, which is why it is widely used as an executive function measure.

The headline score is the number of memory errors on the hardest level with 8 boxes. A memory error means reopening a box that has already yielded a token, so fewer is better: 0 is perfect, up to 2 is few, up to 6 is typical and 7 or more is many. Reopening an empty box you already checked within the same search is counted separately as a repeat error, and the two combined appear as total errors.

The strategy score counts, on the 6- and 8-box levels, how many different boxes you used to start each search and adds them up. It ranges from 2 to 14, and lower means you consistently started from the same place, a systematic strategy. Up to 5 reads as systematic, up to 9 as partly systematic and 10 or more as lacking a consistent strategy.

Fatigue, lack of sleep and a hurried mindset all encourage impulsive tapping, which raises memory and repeat errors together. As an executive task it has a sizable practice effect: first-timers make trial-and-error mistakes while learning the rules, and from the second session most people adopt a strategy and their errors drop noticeably. That makes the trend from your second or third session onward a steadier baseline than the first result.

Repeating the test every few weeks lets you follow both your 8-box memory errors and your strategy score. If, once you feel well and know the rules, you still make 7 or more memory errors on the 8-box level across sessions, and in daily life you often miss tasks or re-check the same places, consider a professional evaluation of attention and executive function. This is a self-check, not a diagnostic tool.