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Public Domain · 1948

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: Gold-standard cognitive flexibility test

Sort cards by an unknown rule (color, shape, or number); the rule shifts every 10 correct sorts and you must figure out the new rule from feedback alone. Measures set-shifting, working memory, and frontal lobe function. The gold-standard test of cognitive flexibility for 75+ years.

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About the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) presents the subject with 128 response cards that vary on three dimensions (color, shape, number) and four stimulus cards. The subject sorts each response card under one of the stimulus cards; the examiner says only "correct" or "incorrect" based on a hidden sorting rule.

After 10 consecutive correct sorts, the rule changes without warning. The subject must abandon the old rule and discover the new one from feedback alone. The test continues until 6 categories are completed or all 128 cards are used. Perseverative errors (continuing to sort by the old rule) indicate set-shifting failure, classically associated with prefrontal cortex damage.

The WCST is one of the most-used tests in clinical neuropsychology. It is sensitive to frontal lobe lesions, schizophrenia (where perseveration is a hallmark), drug effects, and normal aging. The 1948 original is public domain; the commercial Heaton (1981) computerized scoring is copyrighted but the underlying paradigm is free.

The 0 subtests

Take the full 45-item test

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (1948): infer the hidden sorting rule from feedback. Each item describes a card and shows what the sorting rule REWARDS; pick which stimulus card the response card should be placed under. Tests set-shifting and rule inference.

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About these items: These Wisconsin Card Sorting Test items are originally-written reconstructions in the tradition of the original 1948 test, NOT verbatim copies of the historical items. Where the original is a 1-on-1 oral or physical-apparatus test (e.g., examiner shows a card, child draws a shape), we have adapted the format to self-administered multiple choice.

Source

All test materials and historical content on this page are transcribed from:

Berg, E.A. (1948). A simple objective technique for measuring flexibility in thinking. Journal of General Psychology, 39, 15-22.

Esta Berg developed the original sorting technique as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin; David Grant was her advisor. The Berg-Grant 1948 paper has been cited over 5,000 times.

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This page is part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content, transcription notes, and curation are released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). Public-domain primary sources retain their public-domain status. BibTeX · RIS · CSL JSON

Historical test materials are obsolete and are not valid modern IQ assessments. This page is preserved for educational, research, and historiographic purposes.

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The instrument documented above is a historical document. Modern IQ scoring uses contemporary norms (mean 100, SD 15). Our free full IQ test is available separately.