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Aging, Neuropsychology, and

Cognition: A Journal on Normal and
Dysfunctional Development
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Adult Age Differences in Tower of

Hanoi Performance: Influence From
Demographic and Cognitive Variables
Michael Rönnlund , Martin Lövdén & Lars-Göran Nilsson
Published online: 09 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Michael Rönnlund , Martin Lövdén & Lars-Göran Nilsson (2001) Adult Age
Differences in Tower of Hanoi Performance: Influence From Demographic and Cognitive Variables,
Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition: A Journal on Normal and Dysfunctional Development, 8:4,
269-283

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 Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 1382-5585/01/0804-269$16.00
2001, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 269±283 # Swets & Zeitlinger

Adult Age Differences in Tower of Hanoi Performance:

In¯uence From Demographic and Cognitive Variables
Michael RoÈnnlund1, Martin LoÈvdeÂn2, and Lars-GoÈran Nilsson2
1
Department of Psychology, UmeaÊ University, and 2 Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden
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ABSTRACT

We examined performance in a ®ve-disk version of the Tower of Hanoi (TOH) puzzle, assumed to re¯ect
executive functioning, in population-based samples ranging in age from 35 to 85 years (N ˆ 2798).
Univariate analyses revealed signi®cant age effects across three TOH measures as re¯ected by an age-related
increase in moves to solution, a gradual slowing of performance, and an increase in rule violations with
advanced age. The age-related in¯uence was eliminated, or reduced considerably, when controlling for
demographic and cognitive background variables. Across the dependent measures, Block Design and a
measure of episodic memory (recall) were the consistent predictors. No effects of education were detected,
while signi®cant gender differences, favoring males, were observed for two TOH measures. Taken together,
the results suggest that age-related de®cits observed in TOH performance re¯ects an age-related impairment
in visuospatial ability in addition to impairments in executive functions.

One of the best known problem-solving tasks in
the psychological literature is the Tower of Hanoi
(TOH) puzzle (Ewert & Lambert, 1932; Kotovsky,
Hayes, & Simon, 1985; Simon, 1975). The task,
which was probably invented by the French
mathematician EÁdouard Lucas and marketed as
a toy in 1883 (Gardner, 1959), involves three pegs
and a number of disks of varying size. In the
starting position, the disks are placed on top of
each other in a pyramidal shape on the ®rst peg.
The goal is to reproduce this formation on another
peg, with the restrictions that: (a) only one disk
may be moved at a time, and (b) no larger disk
may be placed on top of a smaller one. The
minimal number of moves required to solve the
task is 2nÿ1, where n represents the number of
disks.
The ability to solve TOH is widely considered
to re¯ect planning ability, which is central among
the capacities subsumed by the term `executive
function' (Denckla, 1996; Lezak, 1995; Tranel,
Anderson, & Benton, 1994). Within models
postulating a supervisory cognitive system (Bad-
deley, 1992; Norman & Shallice, 1986), executive
processes are assumed to control and connect
information ¯ow between cognitive subsystems,
monitor inputs and to coordinate planning
activity. Although some of the abilities compris-
ing executive functions may be associated with
other brain areas, these processes are typically
held to be mediated by the (pre)frontal lobes
(Tranel et al., 1994).
The assumption that TOH tap frontal lobe
sensitive processes is substantiated by ®ndings
that patients with frontal lesions exhibit poor
baseline performance in TOH and a related disk-
transfer task called the Tower of London1 (TOL;
Goel & Grafman, 1995; Morris, Miotto, Feigen-

1
This task involves three pegs and three colored disks (or beads) that are to be moved one at a time to match a goal
state, without restriction of order of placement of the disks.
Address correspondence to: Michael RoÈnnlund, Department of Psychology, UmeaÊ University, S-90187 UmeaÊ,
Sweden. E-mail: michael.ronnlund@psy.umu.se
Accepted for publication: November 24, 2000.
 270 È NNLUND ET AL.
MICHAEL RO
baum, Bullock, & Polkey, 1997; Owen, Downes,
Sahakian, Polkey, & Robbins, 1990; Shallice,
1982). Other clinical groups assumed to suffer
from speci®c impairments in executive function,
such as schizophrenic patients (Bustini et al.,
1999), children with early-treated phenylketo-
nuria (Welsh, Pennington, Ozonoff, Rouse, &
McCabe, 1990), children with attention de®cit
disorder (Pennington, Groisser, & Welsh, 1993),
and women with fragile-x syndrome (Mazzoco,
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Hagerman, Cronister-Silverman, & Pennington,
1992), tend to show de®cits in TOH performance
as well. Furthermore, solving the TOL task has
been associated with increased activation in neuro
imaging studies (Morris, Ahmed, Syed, & Toone,
1993; Rezai et al., 1993). It should be noted,
however, that patients with lesions in other brain
areas, such as the right temporal lobe (Morris
et al., 1997) and the cerebellum (Grafman et al.,
1992) have also been found to exhibit de®cits in
solving the TOH.
Of primary concern here, normal aging has
been associated with frontal/executive impair-
ments (West, 1996). Speci®cally, age-related
de®cits have been observed across a variety of
neuropsychological tests assumed to tap these
functions, including the Wisconsin Card Sorting
Test (Heaton, Chelune, Talley, Kay, & Curtiss,
1993), the Porteus Maze Test (Daigneault, Braun,
& Whitaker, 1992), the Stroop Test (Verhaeghen
& De Meersman, 1998), and the Trail Making
Test (Kennedy, 1981). On this basis, one might
expect poorer TOH performance with advanced
age. Very few studies, have addressed this issue
directly, however. In the latest edition of Neuro-
logical Assessment, Lezak (1995) referred to
control group data from a patient study by
Glosser and Goodglass (1990) to suggest that
TOH performance is age invariant in the range
40±79 years. Whereas Schmidtke, Handschu, and
Vollmer (1996) reported a similar result, at least
three studies devoted to skill learning/procedural
memory (i.e., improvements across multiple test
trials), are consistent with an overall age de®cit in
TOH performance (Davies and Bernstein, 1992;
Vakil, & Agmon-Ashkenazi, 1997; Vakil, Hoff-
man, & Myzliek, 1998). Finally, Brennan, Welsh
and Fisher (1997) observed age-related perfor-
mance de®cits across a series of TOH problems
(TOL, Shallice, 1982). This effect was only
apparent when the task involved four, but not
three disks, however. Considering the relative
lack of evidence, and the fact that extant results
are mixed, the issue of age differences in Tower of
Hanoi performance clearly needs to be subjected
to further empirical scrutiny.
Few studies of executive function measures
(but see Heidrich & Denney, 1994), and none of
the TOH studies above, have examined the age
effects in relation to a broader set of background
variables. This is the case even though the
importance of examining age differences in
cognitive performance in relation to other individ-
ual difference variables has been widely recog-
nized in the last decade. A few cognitive
correlates of TOH performance have been
reported in non-aging studies, though. General
intelligence and working memory capacity con-
stitute two potentially in¯uential factors. As
regards IQ, only a moderate association with
TOH performance has been observed in most
studies (Ewert & Lambert, 1932; Vernon &
Strudensky, 1988; but see Welsh, Pennington,
& Groisser, 1991). However, Carpenter, Just, &
Shell (1990) observed a substantial correlation
(0.77) between number of moves to solution and
¯uid intelligence (Raven's Matrices), using parti-
cipants pre-trained on a solution (goal-recursion)
strategy. They hypothesized that these variables
shared variance due to the fact that both tasks
basically re¯ect working memory capacity. No
independent working memory measure was used
though, and a recent study by Lehto (1996; see
also Welsh, Satterlee-Carmell, & Stine, 1999)
failed to ®nd any signi®cant associations be-
tween TOH performance and a variety working
memory measures. Given the intimate relation
between the constructs of executive function and
working memory (Pennington, Benetto, McAleer,
& Roberts, 1996), this result is somewhat
surprising. Thus, studies examining the relations
between TOH performance and measures of
intelligence and working memory capacity in
young adults have yielded somewhat inconclusive
results.
The aim of the present study was to examine
age differences in TOH performance in relation
to a select set of demographic and cognitive
 AGING AND TOWER OF HANOI PERFORMANCE
variables of theoretical interest. One variable
considered was education. In Sweden, as is true
for most Western countries, there are marked
differences between younger and older adults
with respect to mean number of years of formal
education, in favor of the young. It is also well-
known that education is positively related to a
variety of abilities within the domain of cognitive
functioning (Inouye, Albert, Mohs, Sun, & Berk-
man, 1993). It should be noted, though, that
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Glosser and Goodglass (1990) failed to ®nd
effects of education upon TOH performance.
Concerning sex differences in performance, one
study has reported an advantage for males in
number of moves and fewer illegal moves (LeÁon-
CarrioÁn et al., 1991).
Still another variable we considered was
visuospatial ability, as measured by Block Design
(Wechsler, 1981), a test which is known to be
highly age-sensitive (Lezak, 1995; Wechsler,
1981). Presumably, the processes underlying
TOH performance may include a spatial compo-
nent, in addition to a planning (executive)
component. Several lines of evidence are sugges-
tive of this. Effects of secondary task performance
upon solving the TOL and TOH tasks indicate
that visuospatial rehearsal is critically involved
(Phillips, Wynn, Gilhooly, Della Sala, & Logie,
1999; Welsh, Cicerello, Cuneo, & Brennan,
1995). Moreover, Schmidtke et al. (1996) found
an association between visuospatial ability
(a composite score of the Block Design and
Object Assembly tests), and TOH performance in
a group of amnesic patients. These test perfor-
mances were unrelated in healthy controls,
however. Also in support of the notion of a spatial
task component, Rezai et al. (1996) found
increased blood ¯ow in the right parietal lobe
area during TOL performance, in addition to the
increased frontal activation. A similar ®nding was
reported by Baker et al. (1996), who in addition to
prefrontal activation found activation in structures
normally associated with spatial working memory
tasks. Thus, to evaluate the hypothesis that
potential age differences in TOH performance
are caused by a de®cit in executive processes it
was considered important to include a measure to
control for differences in visuospatial ability
(Shallice, 1982).
271
A measure of episodic memory (Tulving,
1983) was also included in the present study.
Episodic memory is generally considered to be
separate from executive functidon (Pennington
et al., 1996), and has long been associated with
medial temporal and diencephalic brain areas. A
number of studies suggest that, in addition, the
frontal lobes are critically involved (Cabeza &
Nyberg, 1997; Moscovich and Winocur, 1995).
Few studies have examined the relation
between episodic memory measures and TOH
performance directly, but evidence that amnesics
tend to show performance de®cits (Morris et al.,
1997) suggests that episodic memory de®cits
hampers TOH performance. Schmidtke et al.
(1996) moreover found that memory (as assessed
by the Wechsler Memory Scale) and TOH
performances were correlated in amnesics (unfor-
tunately, no memory data were reported for the
control subjects). On the other hand, results by
Mazzocco et al. (1992) revealed a dissociation
between episodic memory (paired-associate
recall) and TOH performance, such that their
patient group (fragile-x women) showed impaired
TOH performance despite evidence of enhanced
recall as compared with controls. Thus, whereas
poor TOH performance is not necessarily asso-
ciated with de®cits in episodic memory, it may be
an important factor to consider, especially as
episodic memory is associated with sizeable age-
related impairments (see Kausler, 1994 for a
review).
Finally, we included measures of word ¯uency.
Word ¯uency tasks are commonly assumed to
re¯ect frontal/executive function (Stuss & Ben-
son, 1986). A high degree of association between
this measure and TOH performance should hence
be indicative of convergent validity of the
measures. A signi®cant correlation between word
¯uency and TOH has been reported in amnesics
(Schmidtke et al., 1996) and in children (Gnys
and Willis, 1991). As concerns age effects in word
¯uency performance, there is evidence of moder-
ate differences in favor of young individuals
(Ardila & Roselli, 1989; Schaie & Willis, 1993;
but see Daigneault, Braun, & Whitaker, 1992).
A hierarchic regression methodology was
employed. Simple regression analyses were con-
ducted to see if there was an age effect for the
 272 È NNLUND ET AL.
MICHAEL RO

Table 1. Summary Statistics for Independent Measures Across Age Groups (M, SD).

Age group Education Block Design Fluency A Fluency B Recall SPT Recall VT
(gender: F/M) max ˆ 51
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

35 (49/51) 12.9 (2.5) 34.8 (9.1) 12.8 (4.4) 5.0 (2.0) 10.9 (2.4) 6.2 (2.8)
40 (148/144) 13.6 (2.9) 34.4 (9.0) 13.2 (4.5) 5.2 (2.0) 10.5 (2.4) 6.7 (2.8)
45 (151/137) 13.6 (3.4) 31.3 (9.1) 12.8 (4.8) 5.1 (2.3) 10.4 (2.6) 6.3 (2.8)
50 (151/137) 12.2 (3.8) 31.8 (8.8) 12.7 (4.6) 5.4 (2.3) 9.8 (2.4) 5.4 (2.7)
55 (161/128) 10.6 (3.6) 28.8 (9.4) 11.8 (4.6) 5.0 (2.2) 9.4 (2.6) 5.4 (2.6)
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60 (161/128) 9.6 (3.7) 26.7 (8.4) 11.7 (4.9) 4.9 (2.2) 8.5 (2.7) 4.9 (2.4)
65 (159/133) 8.3 (3.0) 23.4 (8.2) 10.5 (4.7) 4.6 (2.4) 7.8 (2.6) 4.2 (2.2)
70 (170/113) 7.6 (2.8) 20.3 (8.4) 9.9 (4.7) 4.0 (2.0) 7.0 (2.6) 3.8 (2.0)
75 (164/115) 7.8 (3.4) 19.0 (8.2) 9.1 (4.2) 3.8 (2.1) 6.1 (2.9) 3.3 (2.2)
80 (159/113) 7.2 (2.6) 15.4 (8.2) 8.1 (4.3) 3.2 (1.9) 5.2 (2.8) 2.5 (1.9)
85 (83/43) 7.1 (2.6) 13.1 (7.8) 7.2 (4.7) 2.9 (2.0) 3.9 (2.6) 1.9 (1.5)

Note. SPT: subject-performed tasks, VT: verbal tasks.

three dependent measures considered. In a second
step, the demographic (sex, education) and
cognitive variables (Block Design, Word ¯uency,
Recall) were entered before age, in order to
determine whether an age effect remained after
considering the in¯uence of the background
variables (West, Crook & Barron, 1991; Nyberg,
BaÈckman, Erngrund, Olofsson, & Nilsson, 1996).
The data on which this study is based emanate
from an ongoing longitudinal study on memory
and health, the Betula study (Nilsson et. al.,
1997). The data were from the second wave of
data collection (1993±1995), in which the TOH
task was administered for the ®rst time. Hence,
the data reported are cross-sectional. A ®ne-
grained examination of age differences was
possible by including a broad range of age groups
(35±85 years; N ˆ 2798). The sample was
population-based in that the participants were
randomly selected from the general population.
As such, the results should be of value as
normative data for future studies.
1993±1995. The total sample involved 874 returnees
from the ®rst measurement occasion (T1), 5 years
earlier, as well as 1985 individuals from two
additional samples. The latter individuals were
tested for the ®rst time at T2 (see Nilsson et al.,
1997 for a full description of the design). It should be
noted that the TOH-task was administered for the
®rst time at T2. Participants could be divided into 11
age cohorts (35, 40, 45, . . . , 85 years at date of test)
and were randomly drawn from the population
registry in UmeaÊ, a city of about 100,000 inhabi-
tants, in Northern Sweden. Participants that were
tested for the ®rst time were all screened for
dementia during the recruitment phase, as were
those from the re-tested sample at T1 (see Nilsson
et al., 1997 for further details concerning recruitment
and exclusion criteria adopted in the Betula study).
From the re-tested sample, data for individuals with
a dementia diagnosis were consequently excluded.
In addition, data for 45 participants were excluded
from the present study due to the fact that they, for
various reasons, had not attempted the TOH task.
Hence the ®nal number of participants considered
for the present study was 2798. Their distribution
across age cohorts and gender is presented in Table 1.

Materials and Procedure

METHOD
Participants
Participants were from the Betula prospective cohort
study (Nilsson et al., 1997). The data were collected
as part of the second measurement occasion (T2) in
The Tower of Hanoi puzzle was constructed from a
rectangular block of wood (29.5  102 cm). Three
wooden pegs (9 cm high) were inserted to the base
9 cm apart. Five disks made of wood and graduated
in size were used (8, 7, 6, 5, and 4 cm in diameter,
respectively).
 AGING AND TOWER OF HANOI PERFORMANCE
The task was administered at the second of the
two visits each subject made to ful®ll their parti-
cipation in the study. The ®rst visit was primarily
devoted to medical examination and collection of
questionnaire data, and the second visit mainly
involved testing of various cognitive functions. The
task was presented after approximately 70 min from
the beginning of the test session.
In the starting position the ®ve disks were placed
on the leftmost peg, with the largest disk at the
bottom and the smallest on top. The experimenter
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told the participant that the goal was to duplicate
this formation on another peg. Hence, the right as
well as the middle peg served as the goal peg
(Butters, Wolfe, Martone, Granholm, & Cermak,
1985).
The disks could be moved to any peg given three
restrictions: (a) one disk only could be moved at a
time, (b) a larger disk could not be placed on a
smaller disk, and (c), a disk to be moved always had
to be placed on a peg (i.e. a disk could not be
removed entirely from the puzzle). Participants were
requested to solve the task in as few moves as
possible, and as fast as possible. With ®ve disks the
minimum number of moves is 31.
The experimenter recorded the number of moves
on a response protocol. If the participant made an
illegal move, violating any of the rules (a)±(c) as
described above, the experimenter pointed out the
error directly, recorded it, and the disk-state prior
to the illegal move was reinstated. A maximum of
20 min was allotted for completing the task. In some
cases a participant wanted to give up the problem
before the time had run out. In such cases the experi-
menter encouraged the subject to complete the task
without giving any hints as to the way of solving the
problem (e.g. ``It would be good if you would give it
another try, you still have time left''). In a certain
number of cases, the participant nevertheless wanted
to quit the task. In such cases the time was recorded,
as well as the ®nal position of the disks. In still other
cases, the time ran out without the participant being
able to complete the task. In such cases, the ®nal
position was recorded. The way these categories of
cases were treated in further analyses is outlined
below.
Predictors
Gender
Participants within each cohort were sampled so that
the gender distribution would approximate that in
the total population. As a consequence, there were
more women (n ˆ 1556) than men (n ˆ 1242) in the
total sample.
273
Education
Self-reported number of years in formal education
served as the measure of education. A few missing
values (1.8%) were noted. For returnees, missing
values were replaced with the corresponding T1 data
(n ˆ 19).2
Block Design
Participants underwent the Block Design Test
(Wechsler, 1981), and in the following analyses the
obtained raw scores were used.
Word Fluency
In the ®st task participants were asked to say aloud
as many words as possible with an initial A
(¯uency A), in 1 min. In the second task they were
requested to generate as many professions as
possible with an initial B (¯uency B), in 1 min.
The measure used in the following analysis was a
composite score of the two ¯uency tasks, computed
by averaging the z-scores.
Recall
Two lists of 16 sentences (e.g. roll the ball, lift the
book) were presented to the participants at study
together with instructions to memorize them. During
study of one of the two lists the participant was
requested to perform the appropriate action (SPT;
subject performed task), whereas before presentation
of the other list no speci®c instructions was given
(VT; verbal task). Following presentation of the last
item in each list, participants were requested to
orally recall as many of the imperatives as possible,
in any order. A composite measure, computed by
averaging the z-score of number of recalled
sentences for the two lists, was used.
Table 1 provides a summary of the individual dif-
ference variables across age groups. All of the cog-
nitive variables were negatively associated with age
( p < .01).
RESULTS
Preliminary Analyses
Participants may be divided into three categories
with respect to performance on the TOH: (a) those
who managed to reach the solution within the
time-limit, (b) those who did not manage to solve
the task before the time limit had elapsed, (c)
2
In the subsequent analyses, the few cases containing a
missing value for this, or any of the other predictor
variables, were dropped.
 274 È NNLUND ET AL.
MICHAEL RO

Table 2. Percentage of Participants Solving and Not For the number of moves-to-completion mea-
Solving the TOH Task in Time Across Age sure, the following analyses will include data for
Groups.
the ®rst participant category only (i.e., solvers). In
Age Solved Not solved Broken off the analyses of time to completion and number of
group within time within time illegal moves, on the other hand, ratio measures
limit limit (time/total number of legal moves, illegal moves/
total number of legal moves) were used. The
35 92.0 1.0 7.0
40 94.5 1.4 4.1
advantage of correcting for moves is twofold.
45 93.8 1.7 4.5 First, it should allow for the latency- and illegal
moves data to be analyzed independently of
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50 94.8 1.0 4.2

55 90.7 3.1 6.2 number of moves. Speci®cally, the number of
60 86.9 2.4 10.7 moves and time to completion measure were
65 88.0 2.4 9.6
70 85.2 3.2 11.7
substantially associated (r ˆ .66 for the two
75 77.4 4.7 17.9 measures), such that a mean increase in number
80 64.0 7.7 28.3 of moves may almost inevitably lead to a mean
85 54.8 4.8 40.5 increase in time to completion. A higher inci-
Total 85.1 3.0 11.9 dence of rule violations might in a similar vein be
expected as the total number of moves increases.
Second, using the ratio measures allows for
analyzing data for, in principle, all of the
those who gave up the task before the time limit participants3, and not only those who managed
had elapsed. Table 2 presents the frequency of to solve the task. Given that non-solvers scored
persons within each of the categories, across age lower than solvers on the background variables,
groups. In line with the predicted age effect, the and given the fact that task-rejection rates were
percentage of persons solving the task within the high for the two oldest cohorts, underestimation
time limit decreased with advancing age, whereas of the age effects should presumably be circum-
the opposite pattern was true for the other two vented by using these measures. Parallel analyses,
subject categories, as con®rmed by simple restricted to solvers were conducted for the
regression analyses (p < .01). Various factors move latency and illegal moves data, however,
might explain the fact that some participants and we report cases in which results from the
failed to complete the task or gave up the task. two sets of analyses deviate. For sake of
Lack of motivation and fatigue may have been the comparisons with other studies we also present
reason, at least in some cases. It is also possible means and standard deviations across age groups
that the group of `non-solvers' differed system- for the two other basic TOH measures, time to
atically in cognitive abilities from those who completion and absolute number of illegal moves,
managed the task. in addition to (excess) moves to completion
Table 3 presents values on the background (Table 4).4
variables for participants not solving the TOH
puzzle, across age groups. The education measure
and the measures of the cognitive variables are 3
expressed in terms of standard deviations of the A few cases were detected for which the time had not
recorded for participants who had broken off. Observa-
group that managed to solve the TOH. These tions more than four standard deviations from the
indicate that, across age groups, non-solvers sample mean were furthermore discarded in these
scored lower in each of the cognitive measures, analyses. Nevertheless, data for more than 98% of the
especially Block Design. Mean level of education participants were included.
tended to be lower in non-solvers as well (all 4
Preliminary analyses involving retest status as a
p < .01). Finally, there were more women (69.0%) predictor yielded no overall effect for any of the
in the group of non-solvers than expected from dependent measures, and no interactions with age.
chance (57.9%, p < .01, two-tailed test). Hence, the data were collapsed across this factor.
 AGING AND TOWER OF HANOI PERFORMANCE 275

Table 3. Background Characteristics for Participants Not Solving the TOH Task, Across Age Groups. Values for
Education and Cognitive Measures are Expressed in Terms of Standard Deviations of Participants Solving
the Task.

Age group Education Variable

(females/males)
Block Design Word ¯uency Recall

35 (6/2) ÿ0.29 ÿ0.86 ÿ0.98 ÿ0.37

40 (11/5) ÿ0.01 ÿ0.69 0.14 ÿ0.20
45 (14/4) ÿ0.17 ÿ0.58 ÿ0.37 ÿ0.79
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50 (12/3) ÿ0.50 ÿ0.79 ÿ0.40 ÿ0.31

55 (21/6) ÿ0.54 ÿ1.06 ÿ0.64 ÿ0.34
60 (24/14) ÿ0.46 ÿ0.95 ÿ0.41 ÿ0.70
65 (25/10) ÿ0.20 ÿ0.73 ÿ0.34 ÿ0.25
70 (24/18) ÿ0.21 ÿ0.56 ÿ0.82 ÿ0.59
75 (44/19) ÿ0.27 ÿ0.78 ÿ0.58 ÿ0.52
80 (65/34) ÿ0.20 ÿ0.55 ÿ0.53 ÿ0.53
85 (41/16) ÿ0.25 ÿ0.77 ÿ0.70 ÿ0.50
Weighted M ÿ0.27 ÿ0.72 ÿ0.54 ÿ0.50

Table 4. Summary Statistics for Three TOH Measures all background variables were entered in the
(Solvers) Across Age Groups (M, SD). further analyses.
Age Excess Time to Illegal
group moves completion moves Reliability Estimates
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) To our knowledge, reliability estimates for the
TOH task have been provided in three previous
35 30.5 (20.6) 313.0 (182.7) 0.7 (1.2) studies. A test±retest reliability estimate of .74
40 31.6 (23.4) 338.8 (195.8) 0.9 (1.4)
45 36.4 (25.6) 377.2 (221.9) 1.0 (1.4)
was provided by Willis (1991), in a study of
50 35.4 (24.8) 376.7 (224.5) 1.3 (1.8) children, using a very brief interval (25 min)
55 35.6 (26.0) 400.4 (219.4) 1.3 (1.6) between trials. Humes, Welsh, Retzlaff, and
60 36.8 (24.5) 424.5 (247.2) 1.5 (2.3) Cookson (1997) reported a split-half correlation
65 39.5 (26.5) 445.6 (240.3) 1.7 (2.3) of .87 in a study in which TOH performance was
70 38.9 (25.6) 479.8 (241.0) 2.3 (2.8)
75 40.7 (27.0) 500.6 (268.6) 2.4 (2.9)
assessed by a series of sub-problems. Lehto
80 38.8 (25.6) 517.2 (230.0) 3.2 (3.9) (1996) reported a Cronbach Alpha of .53, using
a similar way of assessing TOH performance.
In light of concerns as regards the measure-
ment properties of this and related tasks (Lowe &
To check for potential problems with multi- Rabbitt, 1998) we examined stability coef®cients
collinearity among the measures, each of the (test±retest correlations) in a group of participants
independent variables were regressed against (n ˆ 336, baseline age: 40±45) for which 5-year
each other (Nyberg, BaÈckman, Erngrund, Olofs- longitudinal data were available. The results
son, & Nilsson, 1996; West et al., 1991). None of were: r ˆ .20 for moves, r ˆ .27 for illegal moves
the variables predicted each other at a problematic (corrected for moves), and r ˆ .45 for the move
level (R < . 70). Also, an examination of the zero- latency measure. These estimates are clearly
order correlations between the independent and lower than previous estimates, which may have
dependent variables revealed that all of the to do with the way the TOH task was posed (e.g. a
independent variables were signi®cantly related single trial versus a series a sub-problems), and
to at least two of the dependent measures. Thus, the long test±retest interval in the present case.
 276 È NNLUND ET AL.
MICHAEL RO

Table 5. Summary of Simple and Hierarchical Regression Analyses for Number of Moves to Completion.

Predictor B Cum. R2
R2 F (total block)

First analysis
Age .104 .011 25.97**
a
Second analysis
Sex ÿ.015
Education .029
Block Design ÿ.148*
Word ¯uency .012
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Recall ÿ.138* .044 21.48*

Age ÿ.052 .045 .001 18.46*

Note. * p < :0001; a the B-coef®cients are from the equation including age as a predictor.

We will return to this issue in the Section turned out as the only signi®cant predictors of this
``DISCUSSION'' measure.

Regression Analyses Move Latency

Only results at, or below, the alpha-level .001 will
be reported. The conservative signi®cance level is
motivated by the large sample size. As there was a
trend for distributions to be positively skewed
across the three dependent measures, the data
were subjected to a logarithmic transformation
(log 10y; Fox, 1991) before each of the following
analyses.5
Moves to Completion
Inspection of the mean values in Table 4 suggest a
tendency for the number of (excess) moves to
increase somewhat from the youngest adults (30.5
for 35-year-olds) to the oldest (37.8 for 85-year-
olds). The results of the simple regression
analysis, presented in Table 5, con®rmed the
impression that age was positively associated with
number of moves. It should be noted, however,
that age only accounted for about 1% of the
variance. The age effect was eliminated when the
other variables were entered before age
(Fchange(1, 2374) ˆ 3.24, n.s.). The total set of
variables accounted for a little less than ®ve
percent of the variance. Block Design and recall
5 removing their in¯uence from the age effect, the
Prior to transformation of raw data for illegal moves, a
constant (1) was added to each observation to attain the
requirement that all values should be positive (i.e.,
0-scores were observed).
Turning to the move latency (time/move) mea-
sure, the data depicted in Figure 1, much in line
with the time to completion data (Table 4), show a
continuous age related slowing of performance.
The age effect appears to be magni®ed when
considering all of the participants, rather than
solvers only, much in line with our reasoning
above. A simple regression analysis con®rmed
these impressions (R2 ˆ .136 for the total sample,
and R2 ˆ .089, when the analysis was restricted to
solvers). After controlling for the background
variables, a marginally signi®cant amount of age-
related in¯uence remained (Fchange(1, 2747) ˆ
12.65). This effect hardly captures theoretical
interest, however, considering that the amount of
unique age-related variance was less than half a
percent (i.e., a reduction of the age-related
in¯uence by approximately 97%). As is seen in
Table 6, an effect of sex, consistent with faster
performance in men was observed. In addition,
Block Design, word ¯uency, and recall turned out
as signi®cant predictors of this measure, the total
set of variables accounting for about 27% of the
variance in performance. As regards the relative
in¯uence of the predictors, and the effect of
corresponding analyses for solvers yielded a
pattern of results virtually identical to that above,
and hence the data are not reported.
 AGING AND TOWER OF HANOI PERFORMANCE 277
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Fig. 1. Mean time per move across age groups, for solvers and for all of the participants ( SEM).

Illegal Moves. (1, 2752) ˆ 4.34, n.s.), as seen in Table 7. Effects

The data for illegal moves (corrected for total
number of moves) as presented in Figure 2,
suggest that there is a gradual age-related increase
in the probability of rule violations. The effect
appears to be more pronounced when data for
non-solvers as well as solvers are considered as
compared to when only data for solvers are
included. Simple regression analyses showed that
age was associated with a little more than 10% of
the variance in this measure (eight, in the group of
solvers). The age effect was eliminated when the
other variables were entered before age (Fchange
of sex, consistent with better performance (fewer
errors) in men, Block Design, recall, and word
¯uency were observed for this measure. Again,
the principle ®ndings were the same in the
corresponding analyses of solvers, and the results
are not reported here.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of the present study was to examine
age-related differences in the Tower of Hanoi

Table 6. Summary of Simple and Hierarchical Regression Analyses for Move Latency (time per move).

Predictor B Cum. R2
R2 F (total block)

First analysis
Age .368 .136 431.79**
a
Second analysis
Sexb ÿ.136**
Education .027
Block Design ÿ.253**
Word ¯uency ÿ.164**
Recall ÿ.124** .264 194.48**
Age .084* .268 .004 164.87**

Note. *p < :001, **p < :0001; a the B-coef®cients are from the equation including age as a predictor; b a negative
coef®cient indicates that men were faster than women.
 278 È NNLUND ET AL.
MICHAEL RO
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Fig. 2. Mean number of illegal moves per move across age groups, for solvers and for all of the participants
( SEM).

Puzzle in a population-based sample of adults
between the ages 35 and 85 years, before and after
controlling for age differences in other demo-
graphic and cognitive factors. First, we will
consider the overall results with regard to the
simple and hierarchical regression analyses, then
we turn to the relative in¯uence of the demo-
graphic and cognitive background variables.
As indicated by simple regression analyses,
each of the TOH measures considered was
associated with age-related de®cits. These effects
re¯ected an age-related increase in the number of
moves required for solving the TOH, a gradual
decrease in speed of performance, and a contin-
uous increase in illegal moves conducted, respec-
tively. Also, the task rejection rate tended to be
higher in the oldest cohorts. This was especially
true for the 80-, and 85-year olds, a ®nding which
itself is suggestive of an age-related performance
de®cit, especially considering the fact that non-
solvers were found to perform worse on the
cognitive background variables. To this point, our
results con®rm that Tower of Hanoi is an age
sensitive task (Brennan et al., 1997; Vakil, &

Table 7. Summary of Simple and Hierarchical Regression Analyses for Number of Illegal Moves per Move.

Predictor B Cum. R2
R2 F (total block)

First analysis
Age .324 .105 323.13**
a
Second analysis
Sexb ÿ.109**
Education .018
Block Design ÿ.211**
Word ¯uency ÿ.093**
Recall ÿ.184** .206 140.59**
Age .051 .207 .001 118.02**

Note. **p < :0001; a the B-coef®cients are from the equation including age as a predictor; b a negative coef®cient
indicates that men made fewer illegal moves than women.
 AGING AND TOWER OF HANOI PERFORMANCE
Agmon-Ashkenazi, 1997), and extend the results
across a wide range of the adult life span.
The age effects were quite substantial in
magnitude for the move latency measure and for
illegal moves, but for the moves-to-completion
measure they were very small (cf., Vakil &
Agmon- Ashkenazi, 1997, but see Vakil et al.,
1998). This pattern of results must probably be
interpreted in light of different reliabilities of the
measures. The moves-to-completion measure, in
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particular, might have less than ideal psycho-
metric properties. It should be pointed out, how-
ever, that the low test±retest correlations may
re¯ect a certain amount of true age-change in
addition to unreliability, as they were based on 5-
year follow up data. Also, the relative sensitivity
of the TOH measures is most likely not static.
Speci®cally, one would expect that a certain
speed-accuracy trade off to be involved. The
relative weight assigned to speed or accuracy are
in turn likely sensitive to task instructions.
Emphasizing the importance of accuracy, or
setting a ®xed pace of moving disks, might have
yielded quite a different pattern of results. It is
also for future studies to consider if different
solution strategies (Simon, 1975) tax different
underlying cognitive processes.
Having established that TOH is an age
sensitive task, at least in some its aspects, we
wished to examine the extent to which the age
effects were predictable from demographic and
other, presumably more basic, cognitive variables.
For two of the TOH measures the variance in
performance due to age was eliminated comple-
tely when controlling for the in¯uence from the
background variables. For the third measure
(move latency), the amount of unique age-related
variance, albeit signi®cant, was less than half a
percent, which must be regarded as negligible.
This implies that further knowledge as to the
reasons for the age effects in performance should
be sought for by examining how the aging
processes relate to the mediator variables.
Turning to the in¯uence of the demographic
factors, we found no effects of education upon
TOH performance, consistent with prior results
(Glosser & Goodglass, 1990). For two dependent
measures, gender effects turned out signi®cant.
Much in line with LeÁon-CarrioÁn et al. (1991), men
279
tended to solve the task somewhat faster and to
make fewer illegal moves. Also, women tended to
be over-represented in the group of individuals
that did not manage to solve the task. The reason
for this effect is dif®cult to disentangle within the
scope of the present study.
As concerns the cognitive variables, Block
Design was found to be an especially powerful
predictor of TOH performance. This con®rms that
TOH involve a spatial task component. As regards
age differences, the result suggests that portions
of the age-related de®cits in TOH are attributable
to impairments in visuospatial ability, apart from
an executive or `frontal' dysfunction. A possible
objection is that Block Design score may be
sensitive to frontal lobe/executive function. Spe-
ci®cally, the Block Design test has been con-
sidered a central marker of ¯uid intelligence
(Snow, Kyllonen, & Marshalek, 1984). Other
such tests, (Culture Fair Test, Raven's Matrices)
have in turn been suggested to rely heavily on
ef®cient prefrontal functioning (Duncan, Emslie,
& Williams, 1996; Prabhakaran, Smith, Glover, &
Gabrieli, 1997). Frontal lobe patients may,
however, show preserved Block Design (and total
WAIS) performance, despite severe de®cits in the
latter type of ¯uid tests (Duncan, Burgess, &
Emslie, 1995; see also Criella & Yu, 2000 for a
critical review of the hypothesis that psycho-
metric g equals executive function). Finally,
lesion data and results from a PET study indicate
that Block Design predominantly re¯ects right
parietal lobe functioning (Chase et al., 1984;
Warrington, James, & Maciejewski, 1986), com-
monly associated with visuospatial processes.
Word ¯uency, on the other hand, has been
considered to tap frontal lobe/executive function-
ing (Stuss & Benson, 1986). Word ¯uency was
associated with TOH latency, which possibly
re¯ects the speed-related properties of the two
measures. There was a weak association with the
illegal-moves measure, but not with moves to
completion (cf., Schmidke et al., 1996). In neither
case did word ¯uency stand out as the best
predictor. Possibly, this indicates that age differ-
ences in the various TOH measures and word
¯uency do not manifest a common age-related
dysfunction. It is possible, of course that they
re¯ect different executive functions (Stuss &
 280 È NNLUND ET AL.
MICHAEL RO
Benson, 1986). Indeed, results by Welsh et al.
(1991) indicated that TOH performance loads
on a separate factor when considering inter-
correlations between various executive function
measures (in children). Either way, to have
discriminant validity one should expect executive
function measures to be more strongly linked with
each other than with measures outside this
domain (see also Gnys & Willis, 1991). In this
respect, the ®nding that especially Block Design
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proved to be better predictor than word ¯uency is
notable.
The recall measure was furthermore a con-
sistent predictor of TOH performance, supporting
the view that episodic memory is related to
successful performance. Recall was especially a
prominent predictor of illegal moves. Brennan
et al. (1997) attributed the age-related increase in
illegal moves to declines in executive functioning
and more speci®cally to an age-related inability of
shifting set, which in turn may re¯ect lack of
inhibitory control. Problems in remembering the
task instructions, however, may also contribute to
the age-related increase in rule violations. It
furthermore appears likely that recollection of
speci®c sequences of prior moves reduces the
number of moves to completion and contribute to
speed of performance, by reducing the risk of
perserveration (Schmidtke et al., 1996).
Taken together, the present results indicate that
age-related de®cits in TOH performance may be
associated with impairments in visuospatial
ability, and that episodic memory de®cits may
be an additional factor. Interestingly, patients with
dementia of the Alzheimer type, who exhibit
profound de®cits in these two capacities, perform
poorly in a disk-transfer task (TOL), even when
the task is very simple (Rainville, Fabrigoule,
Amieva, & Dartigues, 1998). Relatively weak
associations between TOH measures and ¯uency
may seem to indicate that de®cits in TOH not
necessarily re¯ect a general executive de®cit. On
the other hand, our recall measure may also re¯ect
executive processes, indirectly. As noted above,
prefrontal brain areas play an important role in
recall. Speci®cally, executive function (as
re¯ected by complex working memory measures)
has been considered a determinant of age
differences in free recall (Park et al., 1996). Thus,
our results may perhaps best be regarded as
indicative of age de®cits in both an executive and
a visuospatial task component. Hence, whereas
we acknowledge that it would be faulty to think
of the various cognitive measures included here
as `process pure', it is presumably not the
case that the age differences observed in the total
set of variables included, re¯ect an age-related
de®cit in a single factor. To examine this further,
we performed a series of supplementary analyses
in which we used each of the cognitive back-
ground variables as regressors, and the other
variables (including the TOH latency measure) as
predictors. In line with our prediction, Block
Design, and recall (Nyberg et al., 1996) was
associated with substantial amounts of unique
age-related variance, in contrast with the TOH
measures.
It may still be considered worthwhile, how-
ever, for future studies to examine the extent to
which the cognitive measures re¯ect age-related
reductions in some general factor, such as that
indexed by perceptual speed measures (Salthouse,
Fristoe, & Rhee, 1996). Age-related increases in
Stroop-interference (Salthouse & Meinz, 1995),
and de®cits in Trail Making performance (Salt-
house & Fristoe, 1995), constitute examples of
`executive' de®cits which seem largely predict-
able from age-related slowing. Also, neuro
imaging might serve as one tool to gain knowl-
edge concerning the neurological underpinnings
of the putative TOH components (i.e., executive
and visuospatial) in relation to the age differ-
ences.
CONCLUSIONS
The chief objective of this study was to examine
whether the Tower of Hanoi puzzle is an age-
sensitive task, something which has not been
established in previous studies. At least for two
aspects of the task, speed of performance and the
probability of conducting rule violations, the data
clearly demonstrate that TOH is age sensitive.
Our regression analyses suggest that the age
de®cits re¯ect an age-related impairment in
visuospatial ability in addition to impairments in
executive functions.
 AGING AND TOWER OF HANOI PERFORMANCE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by grants to Lars-
GoÈran Nilsson from the Bank of Sweden
Tercentenary Foundation, the Swedish Council
for Planning and Coordination of Research in the
Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Swedish
Council for Social Research.
We are grateful to Lars Nyberg for helpful
comments on previous drafts, and to two anon-
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ymous reviewers for constructive criticism.
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