Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST)
A Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) is a Card Sorting Task that is a neuropsychological test for measuring cognitive flexibity.
- AKA: Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.
- Context:
- Task Input: a Card Sequence,
- Task Output:
- WCST Test Score,
- Optional: an Ordered Card Set.
- It can be solved by a Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) System that implements a Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) Algorithm.
- It can be a subtask of Rule Learning Task.
- It can range from being a Manual WCST to being a Computerized WCST.
- Example(s):
- Counter-Examples
- See: Card Game, Set-Shifting, PEBL Software, Neuropsychological Test, Working Memory, Rule Induction, Non-Binary Decision Making, Visual Processing, Cortical Prefrontal Function, Brain Imaging.
References
2020a
- (Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Card_Sorting_Test Retrieved:2020-2-1.
- The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is a neuropsychological test of “set-shifting", i.e. the ability to display flexibility in the face of changing schedules of reinforcement. [1] [2] The WCST was written by David A. Grant and Esta A. Berg. The Professional Manual for the WCST was written by Robert K. Heaton, Gordon J. Chelune, Jack L. Talley, Gary G. Kay, and Glenn Curtiss. <>
(...) A number of stimulus cards are presented to the participant. The participant is told to match the cards, but not how to match; however, he or she is told whether a particular match is right or wrong.
The original WCST used paper cards and was carried out with the experimenter on one side of the desk facing the participant on the other. The test takes approximately 12–20 minutes to carry out and generates a number of psychometric scores, including numbers, percentages, and percentiles of categories achieved, trials, errors, and perseverative errors.
- The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is a neuropsychological test of “set-shifting", i.e. the ability to display flexibility in the face of changing schedules of reinforcement. [1] [2] The WCST was written by David A. Grant and Esta A. Berg. The Professional Manual for the WCST was written by Robert K. Heaton, Gordon J. Chelune, Jack L. Talley, Gary G. Kay, and Glenn Curtiss. <>
- ↑ Monchi, O., Petrides, M. Petre, V., Worsley, K., & Dagher, A. (2001). Wisconsin card sorting revisited: Distinct neural circuits participating in different stages of the task identified by event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. The Journal of Neuroscience, 21(19), 7733-7741.
- ↑ E. A. Berg. (1948). A simple objective technique for measuring flexibility in thinking J. Gen. Psychol. 39: 15-22.
2020b
- (PsyToolkit, 2020) ⇒ https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/wcst.html#_introduction Retrieved:2020-1-31.
- QUOTE: Card sorting tests have a long tradition in psychology, going back more than a 100 years to the work of Ach. In 1948, Grant and Berg[1][2] published their now very famous Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. It is a test of cognitive reasoning. Later, in the 1960s, Milner[3] started to use this cognitive test to assess patient’s level of brain damage to the prefrontal cortex.
This task was developed for use with patients with brain damage. It is probably not so useful to compare executive control function in healthy people. Instead, you may better go for one of the task switching or N-back tasks.
In short, in the WCST, people have to classify cards according to different criteria. There are four different ways to classify each card, and the only feedback is whether the classification is correct or not. One can classify cards according to the color of its symbols, the shape of the symbols, or the number of the shapes on each card. The classification rule changes every 10 cards, and this implies that once the participant has figured out the rule, the participant will start making one or more mistakes when the rule changes. The task measures how well people can adapt to the changing rules.
- QUOTE: Card sorting tests have a long tradition in psychology, going back more than a 100 years to the work of Ach. In 1948, Grant and Berg[1][2] published their now very famous Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. It is a test of cognitive reasoning. Later, in the 1960s, Milner[3] started to use this cognitive test to assess patient’s level of brain damage to the prefrontal cortex.
- ↑ Berg, E.A. (1948). Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 404-411. A simple objective technique for measuring flexibility in thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 39, 15-22.
- ↑ Grant, D. A., & Berg, E. (1948). A behavioral analysis of degree of reinforcement and ease of shifting to new responses in Weigl-type card-sorting problem. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 404-411.
- ↑ Milner, B. (1963). Effects of different brain lesions on card sorting: The role of the frontal lobes. Archives of Neurology, 9, 100-110
2016
- (Cowley & Lukander, 2016) ⇒ Benjamin Cowley, and Kristian Lukander (2016). "Forest, Trees, Dynamics: Results from a Novel Wisconsin Card Sorting Test Variant Protocol for Studying Global-Local Attention and Complex Cognitive Processes". Frontiers in psychology, 7, 238. 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00238.
- QUOTE: We attempt to incrementally broaden the cognitive scope of study, by adapting the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST).
WCST is a well-studied broad test of executive functions, as it was designed to assess cortical prefrontal function, requiring a smooth combination of active cognitive processes such as working memory, rule deduction and updating, (non-binary) decision making, and visual processing (Cinan and Tanor, 2002; Nyhus and Barcelo, 2009). WCST acts as a “card game”, where the subject has to match target cards to reference cards based on a periodically changing matching rule that the user has to discover through trial-and-error feedback. Once found, a matching rule must be maintained for a number of repetitions until the next rule change. According to a literature review in Cinan and Tanor (2002), WCST evokes the following executive functions: maintenance of disparate information including current and recent feedback plus predictive hypotheses; regulation and reorganization of responses to environmental cues; concept formation; and inappropriate response inhibition. Although WCST has been criticized in its role as a neuropsychiatric test of prefrontal function, such a test is not the purpose of this study, and we use and adapt only the task structure of WCST. The relevant characteristics of the task structure are: the trial-and-error based search for the correct matching rule; non-binary choice task; and maintenance of the discovered rule across a block of changing-stimulus trials.
- QUOTE: We attempt to incrementally broaden the cognitive scope of study, by adapting the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST).
2009
- (Nyhus & Barcelo, 2009) ⇒ Erika Nyhus, and Francisco Barcelo (2009). "The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Cognitive Assessment of Prefrontal Executive Functions: A Critical Update". Brain and cognition, 71(3), 437-451. DOI:10.1016/j.bandc.2009.03.005
- QUOTE: In the tradition of testing thinking processes or mental set, in 1900, Ach developed the sorting task in which subjects had to sort cards with non-sense words based on common features shared by the objects the words represented. Later, in 1920, Goldstein reported the use of sorting tasks to test concrete and abstract attitudes in brain-damaged patients. Following Ach and Goldstein, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) was devised in 1948 by Grant and Berg as an index of abstract reasoning, concept formation, and response strategies to changing contextual contingencies (Eling, Derckx, & Maes, 2008) (...)
In its conventional form (Heaton, 1981; Heaton et al., 1993), the WCST consists of four key cards and 128 response cards with geometric figures that vary according to three perceptual dimensions (color, form, or number). The task requires subjects to find the correct classification principle by trial and error and examiner feedback. Once the subject chooses the correct rule they must maintain this sorting principle (or set) across changing stimulus conditions while ignoring the other – now irrelevant – stimulus dimensions. After ten consecutive correct matches, the classification principle changes without warning, demanding a flexible shift in set. The WCST is not timed and sorting continues until all cards are sorted or a maximum of six correct sorting criteria have been reached (...)
- QUOTE: In the tradition of testing thinking processes or mental set, in 1900, Ach developed the sorting task in which subjects had to sort cards with non-sense words based on common features shared by the objects the words represented. Later, in 1920, Goldstein reported the use of sorting tasks to test concrete and abstract attitudes in brain-damaged patients. Following Ach and Goldstein, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) was devised in 1948 by Grant and Berg as an index of abstract reasoning, concept formation, and response strategies to changing contextual contingencies (Eling, Derckx, & Maes, 2008)
2008
- (Eling et al., 2008) ⇒ Paul Eling, Kristianne Derckx, and Roald Maes(2008). "On The Historical And Conceptual Background Of The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test". Brain and cognition, 67(3), 247-253. DOI:10.1016/j.bandc.2008.01.006
- QUOTE: In this paper, we trace the history of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and similar sorting tasks, beginning with the studies of Narziss Ach on the psychology of thinking, via the work of Kurt Goldstein and Adhemar Gelb around 1920 and subsequent developments, up to the actual design of the WCST by Harry Harlow, David Grant, and their student Esther Berg at the Wisconsin University. What we find interesting is the apparent discontinuity, where the cognitive underpinnings of the task are quickly turned into a Behaviorist framework, and how long it has taken to rediscover its conceptual origins.
2003
- (Barcelo, 2003) ⇒ Francisco Barcelo (2003). "The Madrid card sorting test (MCST): A Task Switching Paradigm to Study Executive Attention with Event-related Potentials". Brain Research Protocols, 11(1), 27-37. DOI:10.1016/S1385-299X(03)00013-8
- QUOTE: The MCST is a simplified computer version of the WCST with special features for ERP research (...). The MCST stimulus battery uses the 24 cards of the original 64 WCST cards that can be matched unambiguously with the four key cards based on just one stimulus dimension (i.e., either colour, shape, or number of items in the card; ...).
2002
- (Cinan & Tanor, 2002) ⇒ Sevtap Cinan, and Oget Oktem Tanor(2002). "An Attempt to Discriminate Different Types of Executive Functions in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test". Memory 10, 277–289. DOI: 10.1080/09658210143000399.
- QUOTE: This study examined the roles of the phonological working memory and the central executive in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test by altering the materials and the procedure of the task and using a dual-task design, in which cognitive abilities of normal participants were manipulated by performance of the secondary tasks selectively taxing the phonological loop or the central executive. The present study used three novel versions of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, namely the WCST-4 stimuli, the WCST-12-stimuli, and the WCST-12-stimuli-box, in all of which the participants were given the exact sorting criterion (...)
1993
- (Heaton et al., 1993) ⇒ R. Heaton, Cj Chelune, Jl Talley, Gary G. Kay, and Glenn H. Curtiss (1993). "Wisconsin Card Sorting Test Manual – Revised and Expanded". Odessa: Psychological Assessment Resources Inc.
1948
- (Grant & Berg, 1948) ⇒ David A. Grant, and Esta Berg (1948). "A Behavioral Analysis of Degree of Reinforcement and Ease of Shifting to New Responses in a Weigl-type Card-sorting Problem". Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38(4), 404–411. DOI: 10.1037/h0059831.