Spatial Addition requires visuospatial information to be held and combined
Spatial Addition is a new WAIS-5 subtest that requires several pieces of visuospatial information to be retained and combined to reach an answer. The person must preserve the relevant spatial information while manipulating it mentally rather than relying on a continuously visible arrangement.
Competing information must also be filtered out. The task therefore brings together visual-spatial storage, manipulation, and selective attention within working memory.
Spatial Addition is a secondary visual working-memory subtest in the US and A&NZ editions
Spatial Addition is a secondary Working Memory Index, or WMI, subtest in the 2024 US WAIS-5 and the 2025 Australian and New Zealand Standardised Edition. Together with Symbol Span, it contributes to the Visual Working Memory Index in these editions.
The WAIS-5 UK also includes Spatial Addition and describes the same broad function: storing and manipulating visuospatial information while ignoring competing stimuli.
Other markets may use a different WAIS edition. WAIS-5 availability by market distinguishes the current editions and release paths.
Storage, manipulation, and filtering contribute to performance
Spatial Addition draws on several connected processes:
- Visuospatial storage — keeping the relevant shapes, positions, or spatial relationships available
- Manipulation — combining the retained information to form the required result
- Filtering — excluding competing information that should not contribute to the answer
- Coordination — maintaining the spatial relationships while storage and manipulation occur together
These are task demands rather than separate official scores. They show why Spatial Addition samples a visual form of working memory, or Gwm, instead of the auditory-verbal working memory emphasized by digit tasks.
Spatial Addition differs from Symbol Span and auditory working-memory tasks
| Subtest | Information format | Central task demand |
|---|---|---|
| Spatial Addition | Visuospatial information | Retain and combine several pieces of spatial information while filtering competing input |
| Symbol Span | Designs and their relative locations | Retain the mental images of designs and where they appeared |
| Running Digits | Spoken digits | Keep recent auditory information current as input continues |
| Digit Sequencing | Spoken digits | Retain a completed set and rearrange it into numerical order |
Symbol Span places greater emphasis on retaining designs and their positions. Spatial Addition adds a stronger manipulation demand because several pieces of visuospatial information must be combined while irrelevant information is excluded.
What higher and lower Spatial Addition performance can show
Under standardized WAIS-5 conditions, higher Spatial Addition performance shows that the person effectively retained, combined, and filtered visuospatial information. Lower performance means that one or more of these coordinated visual working-memory demands was more difficult in this task.
The result provides evidence about visual working memory within the wider assessment. How working memory relates to WAIS indexes explains why auditory and visual tasks can show different parts of the broader Gwm ability.
BrainTypeIQ Visual Reversal also uses visuospatial working memory, but requires a visually presented sequence of locations to be retained and reproduced in reverse. Its different format contributes a clear visual-sequence measure to BrainTypeIQ's working-memory domain and five-domain cognitive profile.