Stimulus cards are shown to the participant and the participant is then instructed to match the cards. They are not given instructions on how to match the cards but are given feedback when the matches they make are right or wrong.
When the test was first released the method of showing the cards was done with an evaluator using paper cards with the evaluator on one side of the desk facing the participant on the other. The test takes approximately 12–20 minutes to carry out using manual scoring which is greatly reduced with the aid of computer testing. The test results produce a number of useful psychometric scores, including numbers, percentages, and percentiles of: categories achieved, trials, errors, and perseverative errors.
The WCST has been shown to be reliable and valid in multiple populations including people with autism, people recovering from a stroke, pediatric populations, and psychiatric populations.
Psychological tests such as the WCST, administered alone, cannot be used to measure the effects of a frontal lobe injury, or the aspects of cognitive function it may affect, such as working memory; a variety of tests must be used. A participant may be good at one task but show dysfunction in executive function overall. Similarly, test results can be made misleading after testing the same individual over a long period of time. The participant may get better at a task, but not because of an improvement in executive cognitive function; they may have simply learned some strategies for doing this particular task that made it no longer a good measurement tool.
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