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Phenotypic and Genetic Analyses of the Wisconsin Card Sort

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Abstract

The present study assessed the factor structure and etiology of traditional perseverative and nonperseverative errors, and six narrowly defined errors that occur during the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST). A computer-administered version of the WCST, designed to maximize the variance in a nonclinical sample, was used. Phenotypic factor analysis and twin models were used to examine the structure and genetic and environmental etiology in 191 monozygotic and 165 dizygotic adolescent twin pairs. Factor analysis did not support the traditional division of errors into perseverative and nonperseverative errors. Heritability of individual indices was small to moderate (a2 = 0.10 – 0.42), with varying significance. Estimates of shared environment (c2 = 0.00 – 0.14) were not significant. The best fitting multivariate genetic model had one genetic factor, with specific variance and covariance due to nonshared environmental influences. These results suggest that there are common underlying genetic influences on WCST indices, along with index-specific environmental variance that does not correspond to the traditional division between perseverative and nonperseverative errors.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Marie Banich for support and assistance with the manuscript and Sally Ann Rhea for coordination of data collection. This research was supported by National Institute of Health grants MH063207, DA0111015, MH079485, T32HD002789, and T32MH15442.

Conflict of interest

None of the authors have any conflict of interest to declare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado, Denver, CO, USA

    Detre A. Godinez

  2. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Detre A. Godinez, Soo Hyun Rhee, Akira Miyake & John K. Hewitt

  3. Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Naomi P. Friedman, Soo Hyun Rhee & John K. Hewitt

  4. Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, 594 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    Detre A. Godinez

Authors
  1. Detre A. Godinez
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  2. Naomi P. Friedman
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  3. Soo Hyun Rhee
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  4. Akira Miyake
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  5. John K. Hewitt
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Correspondence to Detre A. Godinez.

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Edited by Yoon-Mi Hur.

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Godinez, D.A., Friedman, N.P., Rhee, S.H. et al. Phenotypic and Genetic Analyses of the Wisconsin Card Sort. Behav Genet 42, 209–220 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-011-9502-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-011-9502-1

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