Wisconsin Card Sorting Test ® (WCST®)

The WCST allows for the assessment of strategic planning; organised searching; and ability to utilise environmental feedback to shift cognitive sets, direct behaviour toward achieving a goal, and modulate impulsive responding. Completion of the WCST requires the ability to develop and maintain an appropriate problem-solving strategy across changing stimulus conditions in order to achieve a future goal.  Unlike other measures of abstraction, the WCST provides objective measures of overall success and identifies particular sources of difficulty on the task (e.g. inefficient initial conceptualisation, perseveration, failure to maintain a cognitive set, inefficient learning across stages of the test).  When used with more comprehensive ability testing, the WCST is helpful in discriminating frontal from non-frontal lesions.