Vecchi T, Richardson J T
Università di Padova, Italy.
Brain Cogn. 2001 Jun-Jul;46(1-2):291-5. doi: 10.1016/s0278-2626(01)80086-5.
The present investigation analyzes the characteristics of two tasks that have been considered as a measure of visuospatial abilities: The Knox Cube Imitation Test and the Corsi Blocks Test. The former was originally devised by Knox (1913) to diagnose mental retardation in potential immigrants to the United States, while the latter has been specifically designed to be used in neuropsychological practice by Corsi (1972). Although both tasks have been widely used in the past, there is little empirical research investigating the characteristics of these tasks from a theoretical point of view. In order to do so, we carried out two parallel experiments in which both tasks were presented in a baseline condition as well as in association with three different concurrent tasks (i.e., articulatory suppression, spatial tapping, and random generation) supposed to tap the various components of working memory. Results showed that neither of the tasks can be considered as a pure measure of visuospatial processing and that, at the same time, it is necessary to reconsider the architecture of working memory in order to suggest a more integrated functioning of the system.
诺克斯立方体模仿测验和科尔西方块测验。前者最初由诺克斯（1913年）设计，用于诊断美国潜在移民中的智力迟钝，而后者则是由科尔西（1972年）专门设计用于神经心理学实践的。尽管这两项任务过去都被广泛使用，但从理论角度对这些任务特点进行实证研究的却很少。为了做到这一点，我们进行了两项平行实验，在实验中，这两项任务既在基线条件下呈现，也与三种不同的并发任务（即发音抑制、空间敲击和随机生成）相结合呈现，这些并发任务旨在挖掘工作记忆的各个组成部分。结果表明，这两项任务都不能被视为视觉空间加工的纯粹测量指标，同时，有必要重新考虑工作记忆的架构，以便提出一个系统更综合的功能。
