Deconstructing the Tower of London: Alternative moves and conflict resolution as predictors of task performance

Abstract

Despite widespread use the cognitive demands of the five-disc Tower of London (TOL) are unknown. Research suggests that conflict moves (those that are essential to the solution but do not place a disc in its final position) are a key aspect of performance. These were examined in three studies via a verification paradigm, in which normal participants were asked to decide whether a demonstrated move was correct. Experiment 1 showed that individual move latencies increase with the number of intermediate moves until the disc is placed in its goal position (resolution). Post hoc tests suggested that the number of alternative moves and moves to resolve a disc were independent predictors of performance. Experiment 2 successfully manipulated these factors in an experimental design. Experiment 3 showed that they remain determinants of performance as familiarity increased. Overall, errors on the task were significantly correlated with spatial memory. The implications of these findings for the use of the TOLin cognitive psychology and as an assessment tool are discussed.

Visuospatial Planning and Problem Solving in Alzheimer’s Disease Patients: A Study with the Tower of London Test

“…the inability to successfully inhibit inappropriate move selections at a specific point of the decisional pathway, or a pure planning deficit. However, greater impairments in more complex items such as accuracy and complexity scores seem to point to a prevalent deficit of planning abilities and to a lesser extent of spatial working memory which has been demonstrated to be involved during the execution of ToL [25] .…”

“…Before moving the balls, subjects need to plan the sequences of moves. An impairment in ToL performance could occur either because of the inability to successfully inhibit inappropriate move selections at a specific point of the decisional pathway [11] , or because of a deficit of visuospatial working memory, or a planning deficit [25] . Recent neuroimaging studies [26,27] have focused primarily on the role of the prefrontal dorsolateral and inferior parietal cortices during cognitive tasks involved in ToL which also induces functional activation of subcortical structures as caudate nucleus [28] .…”

Model-free fMRI group analysis using FENICA

“…This paradigm has been chosen to demonstrate the power of GLM as well as FENICA in a simple, regularly timed task design. The Tower of London task (TOL) used in Study II has been widely used to assess executive functions such as planning and working memory (Baker et al, 1996;Berg and Byrd, 2002;Carder et al, 2004;Dagher et al, 1999;Morris et al, 1993;Owen et al, 1990;Shallice, 1982;Newman and Pittman, 2007;Newman et al, 2003;Unterrainer et al, 2003Unterrainer et al, , 2004. The ability to plan involves strategy, coordination and sequencing of mental functions, and holding information in working memory.…”

The Tower of London (ToL) in Italy: standardization of the ToL test in an Italian population

“…In general, performance on ToL correlates with the results of tasks evaluating other cognitive functions, i.e. attention [13], working memory, flexibility, inhibition control [14][15][16][17] and fluid intelligence [17][18][19].…”