The Towers of Hanoi and London are presumed to measure executive functions such as planning and working memory. Both have been used as a putative assessment of frontal lobe function. In this study, both tasks were administered to 61 normal adult participants to test the assumption that the two tasks are measuring the same cognitive processes. The results revealed a significant, but relatively low (.37) correlation between performances on the two tasks. Follow-up analyses indicated that the likely source of the lack of convergence was the unreliability of the Tower of London. Thus, the common assumption that the two tasks are isomorphic must be questioned.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
CohenJ. D.Servan-SchreiberD. (1992). Context, cortex, and dopamine: A connectionist approach to behavior and biology in schizophrenia. Psychological Review, 99, 45–77.
2.
GynsJ. A.WillisG. (1991). Validation of executive function tasks with young children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 7, 487–501.
3.
GoldbergT. E.Saint-CyrJ. A.WeinbergerD. R. (1990). Assessment of procedural learning and problem solving in schizophrenic patients by Tower of Hanoi type tasks. Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, 2(2), 165–173.
4.
Goldman-RakicP. S. (1987). Circuitry of prefrontal cortex and the regulation knowledge by representational knowledge. InPlumF.MontcastleV. (Eds.), Handbook of physiology (Vol. 5). Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society.
5.
LevinH. S.MendelsohnD. B.LillyM. A.FletcherJ. M. (1994). Tower of London performance in relation to magnetic resonance imaging following closed head injury in children. Neuropsychology, 8(2) 171–179.
6.
MazzoccoM. M.HagermanR. J.Cronister-SilvermanA.PenningtonB. F. (1992). Specific frontal lobe deficits among women with fragile-X gene. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 31, 1141–1148.
7.
OwenA. M.MorrisR. G.SahakianB. J.PolkeyC. E.RobbinsT. E. (1990). Planning and spatial working memory following frontal lobe lesions in man. Neuropsychologia, 28, 1021–1034.
8.
OzonoffS.PenningtonB. F.RogersS. (1990). Executive function deficits in high functioning autistic children: Relationship to theory of mind. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 32, 1081–1105.
9.
PenningtonB. F. (in press). The working memory function of the prefrontal cortices: Implications for developmental and individual differences in cognition. InHaithM. M.BensonJ.RobertsR.PenningtonB. F. (Eds.), The development of future oriented processes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.
PenningtonB. F.GroisserD.WelshM. C. (1993). Contrasting neuropsychological deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder versus reading disability. Developmental Psychology, 29, 511–523.
11.
RossT. P. (1995, February). The reliability and validity of the Tower of Hanoi, Tower of London, and a Modified Porteus Maze Test. Paper presented at the 23rd Annual International Neuropsychological Society Conference, Seattle, WA
12.
ShalliceT. (1982). Specific impairments of planning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Bulletin, 298, 199–209.
13.
SimonH. A. (1975). The functional equivalence of problem solving skills. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 268–288.
14.
SpitzH. H.MinskyS. K.BessellieuC. L. (1985). Influence of planning time and first move strategy on Tower of Hanoi problem-solving performance of mentally retarded young adults and nonretarded children. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 90, 46–56.
15.
SpitzH. H.WebsterN. A.BorysS. V. (1982). Further studies of the Tower of Hanoi problem-solving performance of retarded young adults and nonretarded children. Journal of Developmental Psychology, 18(6), 922–930.
WelshM. C. (1991). Rule-guided behavior and self-monitoring on the Tower of Hanoi disk-transfer task. Cognitive Development, 6, 59–76.
18.
WelshM. C.CicerelloA.CuneoK.BrennanM. (1995). Error and temporal patterns on the Tower of Hanoi disk-transfer task: Cognitive mechanisms and individual differences. Journal of General Psychology, 22, 69–81.
19.
WelshM. C.PenningtonB. F. (1992, February). A critical evaluation of the current and potential applications of disk-transfer tasks to clinical and experimental neuropsychology. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, San Diego, CA
20.
WelshM. C.PenningtonB. F.OzonoffS.RouseB.McCabeE. R. (1990). Neuropsychology of early treated phenylketonuria: Specific executive function deficits. Child Development, 61, 1697–1713.
21.
WelshM. C.WallB. M.TowleP. O. (1997). Use of executive function measures in the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder in children. Manuscript submitted for publication
