What About Inhibition in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test?

The commercially available Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is one of the most commonly used tests for assessing executive functions within clinical settings. Importantly, however, it remains relatively unclear exactly what processes are assessed by the test. Conceptually, increased perseverative errors in sorting cards are usually related to deficient inhibition processes. Empirically, evidence supporting this conclusion is limited. In a sample of 38 healthy adults we addressed the question to what extent inhibition mechanisms assessed by the go/no-go and the stop-signal paradigm are related to WCST performances. Inhibition-related scores were found to predict non-perseverative errors better than perseverative errors. Consequently we conclude that the non-perseverative errors score reflects processes that are partly dependent on inhibition functions.