Developmental variability in frontal lobe function

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between frontal lobe function and Piagetian formal operational reasoning processes in normal young adults. A standardized version of the classical Piagetian Shadows Task, a battery of neuropsychological measures commonly used to detect deficits associated with frontal lobe dysfunction, and four experimental tasks from cognitive psychology were administered to 58 young adults. Factor analysis revealed four well‐defined factors accounting for 70% of the variance. Examination of the analysis indicates strong relationships among results from the booklet form of the Category Test, the Trail Making Test‐Part B, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and the Piagetian measure of formal operational reasoning. Further, the Shadows Task was most strongly related to these variables and not to the other measures, including those of verbal abilities.