Testing executive
functions
A quick guide to free, online tools
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
Who is this resource for?
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Teachers who want to test their students' executive functions
Parents who want to test their child's executive functions
Individuals who want to test their own executive functions.
Why test executive function?
In The Adventures of You we encourage you to take an active approach to developing your executive
functions. One big challenge with this is getting feedback. Say you go out and exercise every day – are your
executive functions improving? How would you know?
Building executive function is a long-term activity. Hopefully the activities that you engage in are so
interesting or enjoyable that they become self-reinforcing, but feedback is always useful to keep you
motivated.
One way to check your progress is to test yourself. Researchers use a wide variety of tests to measure
different executive functions, and some of the tests are freely available online in a form that allows you to
track progress over time. In this guide we provide a brief overview of relevant tests and point you to some
online resources.
A grain of salt
Researchers argue a lot about the various tests for executive function. Are they accurate? Are they
effective? What do they actually measure? It's important not to get too obsessed with them or give them
too much weight. Treat them as a curiosity. Remember that executive functions are complex and
interdependent, and these tests only scratch the surface.
Executive function tests
Tests of impulse inhibition
As we have discussed elsewhere, there are different types of impulse inhibition: delaying gratification,
interrupting a routine behaviour, directing attention away from distractions and so on. Tests of impulse
inhibition will typically focus on one type of inhibitory control.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Stroop task
Simon task
Flanker task
A series of colour-words appear in
colours that match or contradict
the words themselves. Subject
must take care to classify each
word as a match or mismatch.
Subject must perform different
operations (such as pushing a
particular button) based on the
position of a given stimulus (such
as the position of a circle on a
screen).
Subject is told to pay attention to
a central stimulus while
surrounding stimuli are presented
to distract and confuse.
Delay of gratification tasks
Go/No-go tasks
Subject is shown a reward and
then asked to wait before
receiving it (the famous
'marshmallow experiment').
Subject is told to repeatedly
perform an action and is then
intermittently given instruction to
stop the action
Tests of working memory
Working memory is the ability to not just hold information in the mind, but also to manipulate the
information in some way. Working memory tests typically provide sequences of information for recall – the
more robust tests ask the subject to work with the information.
Basic span tasks
A simple test of short term
memory is to provide a list of
elements (numbers, names,
objects) and then immediately
recall them
Corsi block test
(or Automated Working Memory
Assessment
Coloured blocks are highlighted in
a given sequence. Subject must
repeat sequence.
Dual n-back tasks
Subjects must recall increasingly
complex audio and spatial
sequences
Re-ordering span tasks
An effective test of working
memory is to provide a list of
elements and then ask the
subject to not only recall the
elements but also reorder them
in a meaningful fashion (eg by
size, position or type).
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Tests of mental flexibility
Mental flexibility is usually tested using creative problem-solving tasks, or tests that involve switching
between tasks.
Tasks you can do by yourself
Design fluency tasks
These tasks involve creating
unusual uses for objects. Think of
an object and come up with as
many uses for it as you can within
a set period of time.
Verbal fluency tasks
These tasks involve producing
verbal variations on a theme.
Think of as many words beginning
with a particular letter, or with a
particular number of syllables, or
similar.
Category fluency
These tasks see you naming
elements that fit within one or
more categories. List all the things
that fly, or alternate between
naming animals and machines.
Tasks you can do with another person
Tower of Hanoi and Tower of
London tasks
These are related puzzle-based
tasks where the subject generally
has to figure out how to move
different-sized discs between
different locations, in a particular
order, in order to produce a stack
where the discs are ordered by
size
Picture arrangement tasks
One person gives a sequence of
pictures (like a comic strip) to the
other, who must attempt to
arrange them in the correct
sequence.
Wisconsin card sorting task
The subject is given a set of
illustrated cards and must sort
them into piles. The trick is that
the subject is not told how to
determine which cards go into
which pile; they have to figure
this out based on feedback from
the tester. Then during the test
the rule is changed, and the
subject must figure out the new
rule.
Some words of caution re using tests
Don't let young people become despondent because of test results.
One of the key messages of The Adventures of You is that you can build your executive functions over
time if you take the right approach.
Early scores are often artificially low because the subject is learning the task.
Early gains can be made simply by practising the task. Take tests again after 6–12 months to see if there
is any improvement.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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These tests are not a foolproof way to measure executive function.
There are many limitations. The different executive functions tend to work in conjunction with each
other, along with memory, emotions and the immediate experiences that we are having. So a far better
measure of executive function is overall performance in life. Scientists are really interested how well
people can use executive function to improve their own lives. However, the tests are a good way to
explore the concept of executive functions and get a stronger sense of how these functions work.
For parents, teachers and carers
While it might be fun to take some tests and track results over time, there is even greater value in the
topics the tests provide for discussion with your children or students about how their brains work.
Resources
Websites
Wikipedia, 'Neuropsychological test' contains background information about many executive function
tests.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychological_test#Executive_function
Cognitive fun is a site of unknown origin that presents a number of free cognitive tests including 'Go/No
go', 'Dual n-back' and a variety of span tasks. It also lets you create an account and track progress over
time. http://cognitivefun.net
Tower of Hanoi is a classic planning puzzle, easily found online.
http://www.mathsisfun.com/games/towerofhanoi.html
CogTest is a company that provides cognitive testing tools. None are freely accessible, but there are many
samples if you are interested in seeing how they work. http://cogtest.com/coglib_demtest.html
Cambridge brain sciences is a site established by Cambridge University and the UK's Medical Research
Council. It provides free cognitive ability tests grouped around memory, reasoning, concentration and
planning. Even better, the site lets you create an account, track your data over time and compare
yourself to everyone else who has taken the site's tests.
http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Sources of information
Diamond, A 2013, 'Executive functions' Annual review of psychology, 64, 135–168.
Chan, RC, Shum, D, Toulopoulou T & Chen, EY 2008, 'Assessment of executive functions: Review of
instruments and identification of critical issues', Archives of clinical neuropsychology, 23(2), 201–216.
Burgess, PW, Alderman, N, Evans, J, Emslie, H & Wilson, BA 1998, 'The ecological validity of tests of
executive function', Journal of the international neuropsychological society, 4(06), 547–558.
Chaytor, N, Schmitter-Edgecombe, M & Burr, R 2006, 'Improving the ecological validity of executive
functioning assessment' Archives of clinical neuropsychology, 21(3), 217–227.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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