A meta-analytic review of the sensitivity of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test to frontal and lateralized frontal brain damage.

Abstract

The author conducted 2 meta-analyses on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The 1st compared participants with frontal lobe damage to those with posterior brain damage, whereas the 2nd compared participants with left and right frontal damage. Effect sizes based on the difference between groups were calculated for WCST variables and a composite measure. Effect sizes for these variables, except nonperseverative errors, indicated significantly poorer performance for participants with frontal damage. There were no significant differences for the left versus right comparisons. Moderator analyses using the composite measure for the frontal versus nonfrontal analyses indicated that the largest effect size was for dorsolateral damage. Though this study indicates that the WCST is sensitive to frontal lobe damage, caveats are discussed.

Inhibition of action, thought, and emotion: A selective neurobiological review

“…In a classic study, Milner (1963) tested patients who had undergone cortical excisions as part of treatment for epilepsy. Patients with DLPFC damage were markedly impaired on the WCST, committing an increased number of perseverative errors relative to patients with damage to other frontal or temporal regions, and a recent meta-analysis confirmed that frontal lesions (as opposed to posterior lesions) are differentially associated with perseverative errors on the WCST (Demakis, 2003).…”

“…Most errors in the WCST are perseverative in nature, which suggests inhibitory deficiencies (Demakis, 2003;Sullivan, Mathalon, Zipursky, Kersteen-Tucker, Knight, & Pfefferbaum, 1993). However, the paradigm developed by Dias and colleagues involving dimensional shifts and discrimination reversals has revealed that perseverative errors in this type of paradigm may stem from two sources: failures of selective attention versus failures to update stimulus-reward associations following a reversal (Dias et al, 1996b(Dias et al, , 1997.…”

Event-related potentials and cognition in Parkinson’s disease: An integrative review

“…In this context, it is remarkable that the PD-related P3-amplitude attenuation has been related to perseverative behavior on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST; Heaton et al, 1993), a well-established neuropsychological test of cognitive flexibility (Tsuchiya et al, 2000). Perseverative tendencies on this test are commonly regarded as a hallmark of executive dysfunctions in both PD patients (Dirnberger and Jahanshahi, 2013;Gotham et al, 1988) and patients with prefrontal cortex lesions (Demakis, 2003;Milner, 1963). In conclusion, P3a amplitude attenuation in PD patients may be an electrophysiological correlate of PD-related behavioral deficits in adjusting rapidly and efficiently to novel environmental demands, an executive function that is supported by the integrity of fronto-striatal loops (Monchi et al, 2001(Monchi et al, , 2004.…”

Age-Group Differences in Set-Switching and Set-Maintenance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task

“…Our prediction was based on studies of PFC patients, who show deficient set-maintenance abilities on the WCST. This deficit has been ascribed to the patients' sensitivity to distraction and to the interference of irrelevant information (e.g., Barceló & Knight, 2002;Demakis, 2003;Stuss et al, 2000; see also Konishi, Chikazoe, Jimura, Asari, & Miyashita, 2005).…”