Are the frontal lobes implicated in “planning” functions? Interpreting data from the Tower of Hanoi
Abstract
Twenty adult patients with lesions in the prefrontal cortex were tested on the Tower of Hanoi puzzle. The performance of patients was significantly worse than that of controls. This difference could not be accounted for in terms of a general decline in intelligence or memory, or by the size of the lesion. The results further suggest that both patients and controls used the same general strategy to solve the problem and that patients' difficulties with the task have little to do with planning or "look ahead" deficits (as is generally assumed in the neuropsychology literature). Patient performance is best explained in terms of an inability to see or resolve a goal-subgoal conflict. This interpretation is compatible with several existing accounts of frontal lobe dysfunction that postulate a failure of inhibition of a prepotent response to explain poor performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting task, the Stroop task, the Antisaccade task, the A-Not-B task, and the Delayed Alternation task.
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It is now doubtful that the reasons for task failure in frontal lobe patients on the Tower of London could be characterised as a planning impairment.
“However, it is now doubtful that the reasons for task failure in frontal lobe patients could be characterised as a planning impairment (e.g., Goel & Grafman, 1995; Morris et al., 1997; see Burgess et al., 2005a for review).”
From The case for the development and use of ecologically valid measures of executive function in experimental and clinical neuropsychology (2006) · cites this paper as Goel & Grafman, 1995
The Tower of Hanoi is widely used for the measure of planning.
“For the measure of planning the Tower of Hanoi is widely used (Goel and Grafman, 1995).”
From Assessment of executive functions in school-aged children: A narrative review (2022) · cites this paper as Goel and Grafman, 1995
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“A distinction has been made between the mental preplanning that occurs before problem initiation and the online planning that ensues with execution ( Goel & Grafman, 1995 ; Ward & Allport, 1997 ).”
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- Authors
- Goel, V., & Grafman, J.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- Corresponding author
- Grafman, Jordan
- Venue
- Neuropsychologia
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1995-05
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 623-642
- ISSN
- 0028-3932 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1966555477
- Cited by
- 510
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 6.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Neuropsychologia (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Historical and Modern Theater Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Keywords
- prefrontal cortex, frontal lobe dysfunction, Tower of Hanoi, planning, prepotent response inhibition, executive function, neuropsychological assessment, problem-solving strategies, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Stroop task, antisaccade task, A-not-B task, delayed alternation task
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Humans, Functional Laterality, Mental Processes, Middle Aged, Problem Solving, Reaction Time, Task Performance and Analysis, Prefrontal Cortex
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