Put the card under the key card it matches
Like the original, the screen won't say which rule is in force or when it changes. The rule shift after ten correct matches in a row follows common modern practice.8
A demo based on the published design. It isn't the licensed test and isn't normed or diagnostic.
From the psychology of thinking to a monkey lab
Historians trace the idea to European research on thinking. The version used in clinics, though, was built by behaviourist experimenters.7
Four colours, four shapes, one to four symbols
Each response card shows one to four copies of a single shape in a single colour. Crossing four colours, four shapes and four counts gives 64 combinations, the size of the classic deck.7 One card can match a key card on colour, shape or number, or on several at once, so a single sort doesn't show which rule the person is following.
To warn or not to warn
A frontal-lobe test, and its doubters
References
- [1]Eling, P., Derckx, K., & Maes, R. (2008). On the historical and conceptual background of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Brain and Cognition, 67, 247–253. ScienceDirect.sciencedirect.com
- [2]Nyhus, E., & Barceló, F. (2009). The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the cognitive assessment of prefrontal executive functions: A critical update. Brain and Cognition. ScienceDirect.sciencedirect.com
- [3]Wisconsin Card Sorting inspired task (WCST). PsyToolkit experiment library.psytoolkit.org
- [4]Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST): history, research & digital adaptations. Labvanced (2023).labvanced.com
- [5]Wikipedia contributors. Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (accessed 29 Sept 2026).en.wikipedia.org
- [6]Online vision- and action-based object classification using both symbolic and subsymbolic knowledge representations (2015). arXiv:1510.00604.arxiv.org/pdf/1510.00604
- [7]Eling, P. et al. (2008). On the historical and conceptual background of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (record with citing works). ResearchGate.researchgate.net
- [8]The effects of executive functions and social cognition on mental health — study protocol (NCT06213194). ClinicalTrials.gov (PDF).cdn.clinicaltrials.gov (PDF)
Related historical tests
Its Category Test also asks people to find an abstract principle from right/wrong feedback alone. The two are often grouped as the classic concept-formation tests of post-war neuropsychology.
Name the ink colour, not the word. Like the WCST, it measures holding back a habitual response, and the two are now standard partners in executive-function assessment.
Copying nine geometric figures, used to screen for brain damage. It comes from the same gestalt-influenced clinical tradition that Goldstein's sorting work belongs to.
The main adult IQ scale of the period. Card sorting became popular partly because people with frontal injuries could score normally on IQ tests yet fail to shift strategies.
Like card sorting, matrices require finding an abstract rule from shapes, colours and counts. The difference is that a matrix item's rule never changes while you're working on it.
Published a year earlier. It is another non-verbal test built on colour and pattern, aimed at children and older people, the same kind of test-takers for whom card sorting was later adapted.