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MRCPsych Paper A1 Mock Examination 2: Questions
Published in Melvyn WB Zhang, Cyrus SH Ho, Roger Ho, Ian H Treasaden, Basant K Puri, Get Through, 2016
Melvyn WB Zhang, Cyrus SH Ho, Roger CM Ho, Ian H Treasaden, Basant K Puri
Options:Stroop TestVerbal fluency testTower of London TestWisconsin Card Sort TestCognitive Estimates TestSix elements testMultiple errands taskTrail making test
ENTRIES A–Z
Published in Philip Winn, Dictionary of Biological Psychology, 2003
A computational puzzle devised by Edouard Lucas (1842-1891), a French mathematician. It is familiar to two disparate groups of scientists: mathematicians and computer scientists, who use it to investigate mathematical questions; and to neuroscientists and psychologists, who use the tower of Hanoi (and tasks derived from it) to probe DECISION-MAKING strategies and problem solving in both normal and brain damaged individuals. The tower of Hanoi is composed of three upright poles parallel to each other (source at one end, auxiliary in the centre and destination at the other end). On the source pole are placed four rings: a large one at the bottom, followed by the other three in descending order of diameter. The task a subject has is simple: to move all of the rings from the source pole to the destination pole, using the auxiliary pole as an intermediate. However, a larger ring can never be placed on a smaller ring. Some psychologists have argued that while the tower of Hanoi is a well-defined computational problem that has value in assessing abstract problem-solving, it has much less value in assessing 'real-life' problem-solving, which necessarily involves more uncertainty and less clear computations. Moreover, it involves a degree of TRIAL-AND-ERROR LEARNING and it has been suggested that the need constantly to inhibit responses (see INHIBITION) makes it a difficult instrument with which to assess PLANNING. The tower of London task is a related task, widely used in NEUROPSYCHOLOGY research, which is thought to overcome some of the problems of the tower of Hanoi by reducing the number of rings from four to only three: normal subjects learn this task quickly while patients with various forms of neural injury or functional impairment do not. The STOCKINGS OF CAMBRIDGE is a task that forms part of the CANTAB battery and is analogous to the tower of London task. It is a computerized task which involves moving balls from one stocking to another (the stockings being hung in a 'Christmas stocking' manner). The essential planning component of tasks such as the tower of London or the stockings of Cambridge can be made even more clear by having subjects look at two different arrays and report the number of moves it would take to transform one into the other. The Tower of Toronto is a further variant, having three pegs and, like the tower of Hanoi, four rings. In this case though the rings are coloured and there is an additional rule: one cannot move a darker disc onto a lighter one. Having the extra rule makes the task much harder to acquire (involving considerable trial and error learning) but giving the experimenter more material with which to assess the subjects' acquisition of a formula for solving the task; a period of stable performance; and the subjects move toward making the solution an AUTOMATIC ACTION.
Profiling planning skills and cognitive flexibility of adults with autism spectrum disorders: Preliminary results from an exploratory service-based study
Published in International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 2022
Rita Di Sarro, Anna Di Santantonio, Lorenzo Desideri, Niccolò Varrucciu
Planning requires the individual to operate a sequence of planned actions that must be constantly monitored, re-evaluated and updated (Hill, 2004). In clinical settings, this ability is usually assessed by means of the Tower of London test (ToL; Shallice, 1982) in which the examinee is required to arrange different sets of balls on a tower to match predefined configurations. Even if adults with ASD are usually considered impaired in generating and executing a plan compared to typical age-matched populations (for a review and meta-analysis see Dubbelink and Geurts, 2017) or other clinical groups with overlapping neuropsychological profiles (e.g. ADHD; Bramham et al., 2009), current evidence is still mixed (for recent contrasting results see e.g. Brady et al., 2017; Williams et al., 2012). ToL performance of individuals with ASD, for instance, rely on movement capabilities that are supposed to be influenced by general intellectual capabilities (IQ), for which those with lower IQs may show slower responses and longer ToL completion times compared to those with higher IQs (Brady et al., 2017; Mari et al., 2003). Yet, the contribution of IQ to ToL performance in adults with ASD has not received sufficient consideration (Dubbelink and Geurts, 2017), so that further research is needed to disentangle the relationship between intelligence and planning skills (Brady et al., 2017).
Time Reproduction Deficits at Young Adult Follow-Up in Childhood ADHD: The Role of Persistence of Disorder and Executive Functioning
Published in Developmental Neuropsychology, 2019
Russell A. Barkley, Mariellen Fischer
Tower of London Test (Shallice, 1982): This test presents the participant with a stand on which there are three spindles of different heights along with three balls of different colors (red, blue, green) that are arranged on two of these spindles. The participant is then shown a diagram illustrating the goal or final position in which these balls are to be rearranged. In proceeding to rearrange the balls in that final sequence, the participants most do so in the fewest moves. The task requires that participants to look ahead and determine the proper order of moves, and so it is considered a test of planning ability. The score used here was the number correct. The test has been used in a number of neuropsychological studies of children with ADHD where planning deficits have been noted (Grodzinsky & Diamond, 1992; Hervey et al., 2004).
Lifetime marijuana and alcohol use, and cognitive dysfunction in people with human immunodeficiency virus infection
Published in Substance Abuse, 2018
Sara A. Lorkiewicz, Alicia S. Ventura, Timothy C. Heeren, Michael R. Winter, Alexander Y. Walley, Meg Sullivan, Jeffrey H. Samet, Richard Saitz
It is well documented that marijuana causes deficits in recall.14,39,42,43 We hypothesized that current and lifetime marijuana use would be significantly associated with the MoCA memory score, since this section of the measure directly tests recall by requiring participants to repeat a list of words directly after hearing them and again 5 minutes later. No significant association was found. One reason for this, and a potential limitation of our study, may have been that only the MoCA memory and attention subtests were administered, rather than the entire MoCA assessment. The MoCA in its entirety has been validated in HIV-infected populations, whereas individual MoCA subtests have not. The subtests assessing attention and memory individually (and the MOS-HIV CF4) may not be sensitive enough to detect mild cognitive dysfunction in PLWH and comorbid substance use and may explain in part why no association was found between the MoCA attention score and current marijuana use. Other studies reporting attentional dysfunction due to acute marijuana use used the MoCA in its entirety as well as more extensive neuropsychological batteries (e.g., the Stroop Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Symbol Digit Modalities Test) to screen for neurocognitive impairment.15,36 Further, our findings that current marijuana use was not significantly associated with either MoCA score but was significantly associated with the MOS-HIV CF4 score may be reflective of the MOS-HIV being sensitive to executive function impairment and global cognitive dysfunction in general. Executive function measured using validated neuropsychological assessments (e.g., the Tower of London Task, Iowa Gambling Task, Inspection Time Task) has been shown to be affected by both HIV infection and marijuana use.6,10,15,39,44