The role of memory in the Tower of London task

The Tower of London (TOL) task is widely used as a neuropsychological test of planning. Relatively little is known of the cognitive components of the task, and in particular the rule of memory in performance. The current stud ies on normal adults looked at the role of verbal and spatial working memor y in the TOL. The effects of verbal and visuospatial dual-task manipulation s on TOL performance were examined in an experiment with 36 participants. B oth verbal and visuospatial executive secondary tasks caused poorer perform ance on the TOL; however, concurrent articulatory suppression enhanced perf ormance. The results suggest that executive and spatial components are impo rtant in the task, and raise questions about the role of preplanning in the TOL.