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Corsi Block-Tapping Task Performance as

a Function of Path Configuration
a a a
Robyn M. Busch , Kathleen Farrell , Krista Lisdahl-Medina &
a
Robert Krikorian
a
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
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(2005): Corsi Block-Tapping Task Performance as a Function of Path Configuration, Journal of Clinical
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 Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 27:127–134, 2005
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Ltd.
ISSN: 1380-3395
DOI: 10.1080/138033990513681

Corsi Block-Tapping Task Performance

Journal
271Taylor
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as a Function of Path Configuration

ROBYN M. BUSCH, KATHLEEN FARRELL, KRISTA

LISDAHL-MEDINA, AND ROBERT KRIKORIAN
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
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The Corsi Block-Tapping (CB) task has been used as a measure of spatial memory
since its development in 1971. However, a standard set of items has not been devel-
oped for this task, and inconsistencies in performances within levels have been demon-
strated in association with different path configurations. This study investigated item
consistency by analyzing the performances of 94 young adult participants on a block-
tapping task that involved five quasi-randomly determined sequences at each of nine
levels of difficulty. In general, performance declined with increasing path length.
Cochran Q-test comparisons were conducted on the items within each level, and differ-
ential performances were identified at levels 7 and 8 only. Pairwise comparisons deter-
mined the specific items for which performance was discrepant, and further analysis
indicated that performance decrements were related to more complicated block-tapping
paths. The findings suggest that this version of the CB task is relatively consistent over-
all, and the observed effect of path configuration indirectly corroborates the spatial
nature of this task. Performance heterogeneity at higher levels reflected more compli-
cated path configuration and, presumably, greater span capacity load. Differential
intra-level item consistency should be considered in clinical applications of spatial
(configural) memory tasks in order to avoid erroneous interpretations concerning sus-
tained attention ability based on failures within levels.

Since its development in 1971 as an analog to verbal memory procedures, the Corsi
Block-Tapping (CB) task has been used as a measure of spatial memory (Corsi, 1972;
Milner, 1971) and has been applied in numerous contexts, including assessment of non-
verbal immediate memory deficits (De Renzi, Faglioni, & Previdi, 1977; De Renzi &
Nichelli, 1975; Morris et al., 1988), investigation of gender differences and developmental
changes in spatial information processing (Capitani, Laiacona, & Ciceri, 1991; Orsini
et al., 1986), and for clarification of theoretical conceptions of visual-spatial memory
(Jones, Ferrand, Stuart, & Morris, 1995). However, despite the extensive use of this
instrument, little exists in the way of normative data and variations in almost every task
parameter have been employed, such as block arrangement, scoring, and procedural
details (Berch, Krikorian, & Huha, 1998). Furthermore, a standard set of items has never
been developed.

Address correspondence to: Robert Krikorian, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cincinnati

College of Medicine, 231 Albert Sabin Way, Cincinnati, OH 45267-0559, USA. Telephone: 513
558-4218. E-mail: robert.krikorian@uc.edu.
Some of the data contained in this paper were presented at the meeting of the International
Neuropsychological Society, Honolulu, February 2003.
Accepted: 22 October 2003.

127
 128 R. M. Busch et al.

The procedure originally was developed as a nonverbal counterpart to the Hebb recur-
ring digits task (Hebb, 1961), which is a measure of incidental long-term memory. How-
ever, the Corsi task has been used primarily as a measure of attention and immediate
memory capacity. Initial studies using the task employed randomized sequences of digits
(Milner, 1971) and involved epilepsy patients with unilateral temporal lobe excisions.
This work demonstrated a double dissociation between memory for auditory verbal (orally
presented digit sequences) and visual nonverbal (block tapping sequences) information
(Milner, 1978). The findings of the original research were so dramatic and persuasive with
respect to material-specific effects that, without further validation, the task was accepted
and applied as the preeminent measure of spatial memory, albeit with little empirical study
of the spatial or configural characteristics of the block-tapping paths (Berch, Krikorian, &
Huha, 1998).
The original apparatus for the task consisted of a set of nine, 1¼-inch (3.1 cm) cubes
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arranged irregularly on a 8-inch × 10-inch (20 cm × 25 cm) wooden board (Figure 1). The
cubes (or blocks) are tapped by the examiner at the rate of one block per second in novel
sequences of increasing length. When used as a measure of attention or immediate mem-
ory, the participant or patient is required to reproduce each block-tapping sequence imme-
diately after it is administered. Typically, several sequences of the same length are
grouped at a level. As is presumed to be the case with orally presented digit sequences in
tasks such as the common digit span procedure, the number of blocks in a block-tapping
sequence is a determinant of item difficulty. Accordingly, block-tapping sequences of the
same length have been considered to be of similar difficulty, and level of difficulty would
increase with the number of blocks in a sequence (Orsini, Pasquadibisceglie, & Picone,
2001). However, inconsistencies in performances within levels have been demonstrated in
association with the nature of the path configuration (Smirni, Villardita, & Zappala, 1983),
indicating that path length was not the only determinant of performance. Orsini et al. (2001)
found that the number of times the path crossed was a crucial determinant of configural
complexity and, therefore, of item difficulty. Accordingly, both path length and path con-
figuration contribute to performance, and inconsistency within levels may be the result of
path configuration properties, despite equal number of items. A sequence with fewer
blocks, but more path crossings, might be more difficult than a sequence with more blocks
and fewer path crossings.
The goal of the current study was to evaluate a set of stimulus items for the Corsi
Block-Tapping Test used in our laboratory with respect to consistency of performance
within levels of difficulty and to analyze the nature of differing path configurations.
In order to establish consistency within levels in the context of a comprehensive test of

BLOCK TAPPING TASK

2
1
3
4
5
7
6
9
8

Examiner’s view

Figure 1. Corsi Block-Tapping Test apparatus.

 Corsi Block-Tapping and Path Configuration 129

spatial memory, we investigated item consistency within sets of five sequences at each
level, 1 through 9, where the number of stimuli defined level.

Materials and Method

Participants
Participants in this study were 94 undergraduates recruited from the subject pool in the
Psychology Department at the University of Cincinnati. Those who enrolled in the study
received course credit. Each participant was given oral and written descriptions of the
research procedures and provided written informed consent before enrolling. In addition,
all prospective participants completed the Academic and Medical History Questionnaire.
This instrument was used as a means of obtaining demographic information, information
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about educational level and academic performance, diagnoses of developmental atten-

tional disorders and learning disabilities, and information concerning psychiatric, psycho-
logical, and neurological conditions that might affect cognitive function and performance
on the outcome measures. None of the participants from this nonclinical sample currently
were involved in psychiatric treatment. Seven of the 94 reported a lifetime history of
psychological treatment, and in all of those cases, the treatment involved brief courses of
counseling or psychotherapy. None of the participants reported a disabling psychiatric
condition or treatment with psychoactive medication.

Procedure
Each participant was administered the Corsi Block-Tapping Test as a measure of immedi-
ate memory span capacity. The apparatus and task administration were modeled after that
described above and as developed by Philip Corsi (Corsi, 1972; Milner, 1971). The path
sequences for each level are listed in Table 1.
As shown in Figure 1, the blocks are numbered on the block sides facing the examiner
as a means of facilitating administration and recording of the path sequences. The blocks
were tapped by the examiner using the eraser end of a pencil at the rate of one block per
second, and participants were required to reproduce the block-tapping sequences when the
stimulus sequence was completed by touching the appropriate blocks. There were five
sequences of equivalent path length at each of nine levels. The path sequences produced
by the participants were recorded as digit sequences on the record form, which the exam-
iner consulted during administration of the task. For this study, it was assumed that parti-
cipants would be uniformly competent for items at levels 1 through 3, so the test was begun
at level 4, the presumed basal level. This assumption was based on experience with the
task and is consistent with the previous research finding indicating that items at and below
level 3 are accurately reproduced by healthy, adult participants (Smirni, Villardita, &
Zappala, 1983). One point was given for each correct path reproduction.
Three scores were derived. The basal level performance was defined as the lowest
level at which all items were reproduced accurately. In the event that the basal was not
established at level 4, items at level 3 or lower were administered until a basal was deter-
mined. The span limit was the level at which at least one item was correctly reproduced.
Span limit was determined by proceeding with the task until all five items at a level were
incorrectly reproduced. The preceding level was then designated as the span limit. In addi-
tion to basal and span limit scores, a total score was derived from the sum of all correct
responses across levels.
 130 R. M. Busch et al.

Table 1
Path Sequences at Each Level of Difficulty Represented as Digit Sequences
Level 1a Level 4 Level 7
1 3, 2, 4, 9 5, 4, 1, 6, 3, 9, 7
9 1, 7, 6, 5 7, 1, 9, 3, 4, 6, 2
6 3, 5, 7, 1 9, 5, 3, 6, 8, 1, 7
3 6, 8, 4, 9 2, 6, 8, 1, 4, 9, 5
5, 2, 6, 4 2, 9, 1, 7, 4, 8, 3
Level 2a Level 5 Level 8
5, 7 3, 4, 8, 7, 5 1, 4, 7, 2, 8, 3, 6, 9
2, 1 8, 1, 5, 3, 6 5, 9, 3, 7, 2, 1, 8, 4
8, 2 6, 4, 5, 2, 9 7, 6, 9, 3, 1, 5, 4, 8
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3, 7 3, 1, 7, 2, 4 4, 2, 1, 3, 9, 5, 7, 8
4, 9, 3, 6, 2 9, 3, 1, 4, 2, 6, 5, 7
Level 3 Level 6 Level 9
4, 3, 6 5, 6, 8, 1, 9, 4 3, 7, 4, 1, 9, 2, 5, 6, 8
3, 8, 1 4, 1, 6, 7, 8, 2 7, 5, 2, 8, 6, 4, 1, 9, 3
5, 2, 7 2, 5, 9, 6, 3, 1 9, 5, 3, 7, 1, 2, 6, 4, 8
6, 1, 4 7, 9, 2, 5, 1, 3 6, 3, 7, 4, 2, 5, 1, 9, 8
1, 8, 3 8, 6, 1, 4, 3, 9 5, 8, 6, 2, 9, 1, 4, 3, 7
Each digit corresponds to a numbered block as shown in Figure 1.
a
Four path sequences are listed for levels 1 and 2 because items at these levels are rarely
administered.

In order to characterize the sample with respect to level of overall intellectual ability,
the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (Dunn & Dunn, 1981) was administered to
each participant. This is a measure of lexical knowledge that does not require language
production. A standard score equivalent was derived, and performance on this test is
highly correlated with more comprehensive IQ measures (Dunn & Dunn, 1981).

Results
Ninety-four participants, 40 men and 54 women, were enrolled. The mean age of the par-
ticipants was 22 years, with standard deviation 4.5 and range 17 to 43 years. There was no
difference in age between male and female participants, t (92) = 0.36, ns. The overall
mean IQ estimate was 102.6. Men (M = 106) had significantly higher scores than women
(M = 100), t (92) = 2.41, p < .02. However, mean IQ scores for both groups were well
within the average range, and there was no significant association of IQ estimate and per-
formance on the Corsi task (r = .14, ns).
All participants correctly reproduced path sequences at levels 1, 2, and 3 so that basal
level scores equaled or exceeded 3 for all participants. Perusal of Table 2 shows that
performance accuracy, as indicated by frequencies of correct item reproduction, decreased at
the higher levels. Accordingly, the number of participants with correct reproductions
decreased as path length increased. We also examined performance across levels represented
by changes in total scores for each level. Figure 2 clearly shows the decline in performance
with increasing path length in terms of total scores at each level. The latter effect was con-
firmed by a repeated measures analysis of variance that indicated a highly significant effect
 Corsi Block-Tapping and Path Configuration 131

Table 2
Accuracy of Performance as Indicated by Frequencies of Correct Item Reproductions for
Block-Tapping Sequences at Each Level and Intra-level Consistency Analysis
Item number
Observed
Levela 1 2 3 4 5 Q Value pb Value
4 92 94 94 93 94 6.40 n.s.
5 90 83 85 84 90 7.66 n.s.
6 54 59 61 56 46 7.29 n.s.
7 36 26 43 7 22 27.08 .0001
8 19 8 5 20 12 18.80 .001
9 2 0 3 5 1 10.57 n.s.
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a
Level
indicates the number of blocks in the block-tapping sequence.
b
Significance of the Cochran test with df = 4.

5
Level Total Score

0
Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 7 Level 8 Level 9
Level of Difficulty

Figure 2. Performance by Level of Difficulty.

for level scores, F (5,465) = 553.12, p < .0001. Post-hoc analyses indicated that performance
at each of the levels was significantly different from each of the other levels.
The data in Table 2 also suggest that there was relative uniformity of performance
within levels with the exception of levels 7 and 8. Cochran Q-test comparisons performed
on all items within levels 4 through 9 confirmed this observation and indicated significant
inconsistency of performance at levels 7 and 8 only.
Table 3 contains pairwise comparisons that were performed between items within each
level to identify the specific paths for which performance was discrepant. Significant perfor-
mance discrepancies were demonstrated for three items at level 7 and two items at level 8. In
addition, path configurations were plotted and analyzed for selected items at levels 7 and 8
(Figure 3). The path plots entailed connecting the blocks with lines drawn in the sequence in
which the blocks are tapped during administration. This method was derived from Orsini et
al. (2001) and allowed counting the number of times the connecting line intersected itself.
This number was used as an index of the number of path crossings, reflecting the configural
complexity of the path. As indicated in Table 3, those items for which there was significantly
discrepant performance had more path crossings than the other items within the level.
 132 R. M. Busch et al.

Table 3
Number of Crossings and Pairwise Comparisons for Items at Levels 7 and 8
Mean Rank Frequency
Comparisons Correct Crossings
Level 7
Path 1 3.20 36 1
Path 2 2.92 26 3 path 3**
Path 3 3.39 43 1
Path 4 2.68 17 4 path 1**, 3***
Path 5 2.81 22 3 path 1*, 3**
Level 8
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Path 1 3.23 19 1
Path 2 2.82 8 3 path 4*
Path 3 2.71 5 3 path 1**, 4**, 5*
Path 4 3.27 20 0
Path 5 2.97 12 3
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

BLOCK TAPPING TASK BLOCK TAPPING TASK BLOCK TAPPING TASK

S
2 2 2
1 1 1
S 3 3 E 3
4 4 4
E E
5 5 5
S
7 7 7 6
6 6
9 9 9
8 8 8

Examiner’s view Examiner’s view Examiner’s view

Level Seven – Path One Level Seven – Path Three Level Seven – Path Four

BLOCK TAPPING TASK BLOCK TAPPING TASK BLOCK TAPPING TASK

2 2 2
E 1 1 S 1
3 3 3
S 4 4
4
S 5
5 5
7 7 7 6
6 6
E E
9 9 9
8 8 8

Examiner’s view Examiner’s view Examiner’s view

Level Eight – Path Two Level Eight – Path Three Level Eight – Path Four

Figure 3. Path configurations for selected items at levels 7 and 8, which illustrate the difference
between less and more complex paths. Paths one and three at level 7 and path four at level 8 were
less complex and were reproduced with greater accuracy than path four at level 7 and paths two and
three at level 8, which were more complex.
 Corsi Block-Tapping and Path Configuration 133

Finally, Chronbach’s alpha was calculated for all items on the test and found to be
.61. The same internal consistency index was calculated for items at levels 4 through 9 and
was virtually identical (.62).

Discussion
As expected, performance on the Corsi Block-Tapping Test, as indexed by both the fre-
quency of correct path reproduction and total score at each level, generally declined with
increasing span load. These results corroborate the common observation that immediate
memory span capacity is a primary determinant of performance and is consistent with
findings for orally presented digit sequences (Wechsler, 1997).
In addition, our results showed that, overall, this version of the Corsi task is relatively
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consistent from the point of view of intra-level difficulty. However, it also was clear that item
difficulty was more heterogeneous at certain higher levels. Our analyses suggested that the
inconsistency in performance at levels 7 and 8 was largely a function of increased path com-
plexity. However, there also may have been an interaction with increased span load such that
the differential performances would tend to be more evident on items with longer path
sequences in general, especially when those items had more path crossings. The relatively
small demand of span load at lower levels (1 through 5) and the relatively great demand at
level 9 implies that potential interactions of span load with path complexity would be evident at
levels 6, 7, and 8. To evaluate this, one might generate alternate items for these specific levels.
One set of such items might be devised to be uniformly low with respect to item complexity
and another set to be uniformly high in this regard. Performance data for these sets of revised
items might allow one to ascertain the relative contributions of span load and path complexity.
The current finding of a significant effect for configural complexity has implications
for understanding the information processing demands of the Corsi task. The fact that
inconsistent performance was substantially influenced by path configuration supports the
notion that this task elicits primarily configural (as opposed to sequential) information
processing and provides indirect validation that this is a fundamentally nonverbal or
spatial cognitive task. Differential intra-level item consistency should be considered in
developing spatial attentional measures, and other versions of the Corsi task in particular.
In addition, the findings have implications for clinical interpretations concerning sustained
attention ability based on failures within levels. For example, without information regarding
the intra-level consistency of the item set that comprises an attentional task, it is difficult to
draw definitive implications concerning sustained attention deficit based on inconsistent per-
formance. The item set described here has demonstrated intra-level consistency below level 7
and, in clinical contexts, inconsistent performance below that level can be regarded as indica-
tive of sustained attention difficulty. It might be assumed that this issue would apply only to
such configural information processing tasks. However, this is not necessarily the case.
Optimally, any measure of immediate memory, whether containing auditory verbal, visual ver-
bal, or visual spatial information, should be evaluated with respect to intra-level consistency.
Normative data for item sets with confirmed intra-level consistency would be quite useful for
deriving valid information concerning attention in both clinical and experimental contexts.

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