Tower of Hanoi

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Tower of Hanoi

Basic Characteristics

• Description

The Tower of Hanoi is a mathematic puzzle that requires problem solving skills. It is often used by neuropsychologists to evaluate frontal lobe deficits. The tower is essentially 3 rods with a number of disks (7-9) of different sizes which slide on to any rod. To begin, the disks are neatly stacked in order of size on one rod. The smallest rod is on top, so the task begins with the disks in a conical shape. The goal of the puzzle is to move the entire stack of disks to another rod. Participants are only allowed to move one disk at a time. Each move requires taking the upper disk from one of the rods and sliding it onto another rod on top of other disks that may already be present on that rod. No disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.

• History

• References

Related Information

• Cognitive construct associated with this task (vote for your favorite, or nominate a new construct label by editing this page):

• Indicators (dependent variables, conditions, or contrasts; measurement variables used for analysis) associated with this task (vote or nominate by editing this page):

• Closely related pages (vote or nominate related pages by editing this page):

• CNP Level

External Resources

• Links out:
  • Google: Tower of Hanoi
  • Wikipedia: Tower of Hanoi
  • PubBrain: Tower of Hanoi
  • PubMed: Tower of Hanoi
  • -ucla cognitive atlas- (coming soon!)

• Database links
  • Phenowiki Papers For Tower of Hanoi

Task Details

• Task Structure (please given an overview of the task procedures here [i.e., overall design, block, trial, and within-trial event structure and timing])
  • procedure
    • block:
    • trial:
• Stimulus Characteristics
  • sensory modality (e.g., visual, auditory, somatosensory, gustatory, olfactory):
  • functional modality (e.g., linguistic, spatial, numerical, categorical):
  • presentation modality (e.g., human examiner, paper, computer display, headphones, speaker):
• Response Characteristics
  • response required -
    • effector modality (e.g., vocal, manual, pedal):
    • functional modality (e.g., words, drawing, writing, keypress, movement):
  • response options (e.g., yes/no, go/no-go, forced choice, multiple choice [specify n of options], free response)-
  • response collection (e.g., examiner notes, keyboard, keypad, mouse, voice key, button press)-
• Assessment/Control Characteristics
  • timing-
    • monthly cycle dependent??
    • circadian dependent??
  • control assessment
    • 5 senses??