Performance on the Modified Card Sorting Test by normal, healthy individuals: Relationship to general intellectual ability and demographic variables

Objectives. The aim of this study was to obtain normative data for the Modified Card Sorting Test (MCST), land to examine the relationship between performance on this task, general intellectual ability and demographic variables. Design. A sample of 146 healthy individuals was tested with a demographic distribution (age, sex, socioeconomic class) similar to that of the British population. Methods. The MCST and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales - Revised were administered to 146 people aged between 16 and 75 years. Results. Most people (56.6%) completed six categories, and many people made perseverative errors. Approximately 8% of the participants made over 50% perseverative errors. Performance on the MCST varied with age, years of education and general intellectual ability. Individuals with a Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) below 100 showed much more variability in performance than individuals with an FSIQ over 100. Detailed percentile norms for the performance on different indices of the test are presented. Conclusions. The performance of individuals on the MCST is more closely associated with general intellectual ability than with demographic variables.