At four clinical sites, 188 psychiatric patients were assessed with both the standard auditory verbal digit span test and a computerised visual digit span test requiring manual response. Correlations between the two test forms were comparable with other similar studies. Subjects obtained higher scores on the standard version than the computerized version, probably reflecting differences in the mode of presentation and the mode of response, but this difference was much less pronounced in those subjects receiving the standard version first rather than the computerized version first. It is clear that the computerized test cannot be considered to be psychometrically parallel to the standard WAIS subtest version, but it may still be of some clinical value.