DISCRIMINABILITY OF THE WISCONSIN CARD SORTING TEST USING THE STANDARDIZATION SAMPLE

The four neurological patient groups and the normals from the Wisconsi n Card Sorting Test (WCST) standardization sample were used to examine the discriminability of the WCST's indices. Results reveal consistent differentiation of normals from the patient groups on all WCST variab les, with classification rates averaging 71% accuracy. However, patien t groups with frontal, diffuse, and nonfrontal lesions were not consis tently discriminable from each other. The results suggest that the WCS T is most usefully conceptualized as a measure of executive abilities that involves the frontal lobes, but should not be considered solely a s a marker of isolated frontal lobe pathology.