Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 21 (2006) 733–739

Exploratory factor analysis of neuropsychological tests

and their relationship to the Brown–Peterson task
Valérie B. Mertens a , Michèle Gagnon b , Daniel Coulombe a , Claude Messier a,∗
a School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, 145 Jean-Jacques Lussier,
Room 352, Ottawa, Ont., Canada K1N 6N5
b Institute of Mental Health Research, Ottawa, Ont., Canada K1N 6N5

Accepted 16 August 2006

Abstract
The interference condition of the Brown–Peterson task and the auditory consonant trigrams test was designed to evaluate working
memory in that it required a division of attentional processes to complete two cognitive tasks. However, the specific cognitive
functions contributing to the performance of this interference task have yet to be determined. The objective of this study was to
determine what other tasks are comparable to the Brown–Peterson task and conduct an exploratory factor analysis that included the
measures from the Brown–Peterson task and other neuropsychological measures. A neuropsychological battery was administered
to younger participants (n = 107, mean age = 20.83) and older participants (n = 93, mean age = 70.14). Factor analysis yielded a
two-factor solution. Performance after the intervening serial subtraction task loaded on an auditory/visual working memory and
complex attention factor and had common loadings with working memory subtests of the WAIS-III and the spatial span subtest of the
WMS-III. Results suggest that the performance after the intervening serial subtraction task evaluates dual information processing,
complex attention, and working memory.
© 2006 National Academy of Neuropsychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Working memory; Aging; Education; Executive functions; Dual information; Auditory consonant trigrams test

Original studies of Brown and Peterson demonstrated that distractor tasks such as counting backwards following the
presentation of triads of verbal items would decrease recall performance over intervals up to 20 s (Peterson & Peterson,
1959). The interpretation of these data was that items were encoded in a short-term memory store, initially accurate
but that would rapidly fade particularly when rehearsal was made difficult by a distractor task. Numerous studies have
reproduced this phenomenon using either auditory or visual presentation of three consonant letters (or three words)
at various delays before recall. Clinically, the modified Brown–Peterson task (MBPT), also known as the auditory
consonant trigrams uses consonants as the verbal stimuli to be remembered and is comprised of an immediate recall
condition, a delayed recall and an interference condition during which the participant is asked to count backwards
from a given start number. Also clinically used, is the four-word short-term memory test which was originally used
to test Korsakoff patients’ memory and was modified by adding a 5-s retention interval (Ryan & Butters, 1980). The
Brown–Peterson task is typically used to evaluate short-term memory (for the immediate and delayed recall) and
the interference condition is used to assess divided attention and information processing often associated with the

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 613 562 5800x4562; fax: +1 613 562 5147.
E-mail address: cmessier@uottawa.ca (C. Messier).

0887-6177/$ – see front matter © 2006 National Academy of Neuropsychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.acn.2006.08.005
734 V.B. Mertens et al. / Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 21 (2006) 733–739

notion of working memory and executive functions (Spreen & Strauss, 1998). The use of the interference condition
of the Brown–Peterson task as a clinical test for executive functions stemmed from studies of Korsakoff patients that
showed that performance deficits in the interference condition of the Brown–Peterson task were related to frontal lobe
dysfunction rather than their memory problems (Leng & Parkin, 1989). Patients with frontal lesions were found to
be impaired on this task (Kapur, 1988) while patients with temporal lesions performed as well as controls (Milner,
1972). One study that examined the performance of patients with unilateral frontal lobe lesions found significant
deficits in the interference condition of the Brown–Peterson task. However, patients with unilateral anterior temporal
lobe lesions were also impaired albeit to a lesser extent (Richer, Décary, Chouinard, & Lepage, 1996). Functional
brain imaging observations have suggested that performance of the Brown–Peterson procedure is associated with
hippocampal activation (Eustache et al., 1995) while another study reported that frontal cortex activation correlated
with the Brown–Peterson task for short delay intervals (Marié et al., 1995). Some of the discrepancies between these
studies may be explained in part by the type of the triad stimuli used (letters, one syllable words, or longer words),
testing delays, difficulty of interfering task, imaging technique and patient diagnosis.
Compared to other measures of attention and information processing, the Brown–Peterson task has been shown
to be less determined by age and education level, although practice effects were noted (Stuss, Stethem, & Poirier,
1987). However, results have been inconsistent concerning the association of age and education level on healthy
participants’ performance on the Brown–Peterson task. Some studies have found that increasing age is associated with
performance decrement on this task (Floden, Stuss, & Craik, 2000; Messier, Tsiakas, Gagnon, Desrochers, & Awad,
2003) while other studies have failed to show any correlation with age (Bherer, Belleville, & Peretz, 2001; Puckett
& Lawson, 1989; Stuss, Stethem, Hugenholtz, & Richard, 1989). A large normative study found that both age and
education were associated with performance on a four-word recall task based on the Brown–Peterson paradigm using
three recall intervals (Morrow & Ryan, 2002). It was found that increasing age (up to 65 years) was associated with
worse performance while higher education (less than 12 years of schooling versus more than 12) was associated with
better performance. However, the age differences were smaller than those associated with schooling suggesting that
the latter contributes more to test variability. Another study found that only education was associated with poorer
performance on the Brown–Peterson task (Bherer et al., 2001) and the authors suggested that differences in education
level between age groups might account for significant differences between these groups in other studies. Finally, one
study in highly educated older adults aged 55 years and more found that impaired glucoregulation and age (>70 years)
were significantly related to lower performance on the interference part of the task (Messier et al., 2003). Thus, in
the general population, education appears to account for the greatest performance variability, followed by age and
age-related changes such as impaired glucoregulation.
The specific cognitive functions recruited by the interference condition in the context of other neuropsychological
measures remain to be determined. The objective of this study was to determine what other tasks are comparable to the
Brown–Peterson task using an exploratory factor analysis that included the measures from the Brown–Peterson task
and other neuropsychological measures.

1. Method

1.1. Participants

Participants were recruited as part of a larger study evaluating the impact of glucose regulation on cognitive functions
in younger and older participants. This project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Ottawa and
followed the guidelines outlined in the Helsinki Declaration. The Beck depression inventory (BDI) was used to screen for
depression and the Mini mental state examination (MMSE) was given to older participants to screen for cognitive impair-
ments. Younger participants (n = 107, age range = 18–37; mean age = 20.83 ± 0.27; education (years) = 14.64 ± 0.16;
BDI = 4.42 ± 0.38) were recruited in undergraduate university courses and older participants (n = 93, age range = 55–88;
mean age = 70.14 ± 0.83; education (years) = 15.55 ± 0.34; BDI = 4.73 ± 0.41; MMSE = 28.66 ± 0.13) were recruited
in the community through community centers, physical conditioning classes for older adults, charity events and adver-
tisements placed in community newsletters. An initial screening interview was conducted in order to ensure that
participants were in good health and that they did not suffer from diabetes, hypoglycemia, chronic hepatitis, neuro-
logical problems (including brain hemorrhage, tumors, lesions, and head injuries), depression and alcohol or drug
abuse.
 V.B. Mertens et al. / Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 21 (2006) 733–739 735

1.2. Procedure

A neuropsychological battery of tests was administered, which included the arithmetic, letter–number sequencing
and digit span, subtests that comprise the working memory index on the Wechsler adult intelligence scale-III (WAIS-
III; Wechsler, 1997a), symbol search and digit symbol coding, the subtests that are used to measure processing speed
on the WAIS-III, two subtests from the Wechsler memory scale-III (WMS-III; Wechsler, 1997b), logical memory
which included immediate and delayed recall measures and spatial span, which assesses visual working memory. The
procedure also included a verbal free recall task consisting of a practice list of 12 words and four experimental lists
of 20 words. After each list, participants were asked to recall the items in any order. An order reconstruction task was
also administered consisting of remembering the order of presentation of a practice list of 12 words and two lists of
20 words. The words were then presented on a recall sheet and the participants were asked to write down the order of
presentation of each item. Finally, the MBPT was administered to the participants.
Four versions (A, B, C, and D) of the MBPT task were used and each version consisted of three conditions (baseline,
waiting without counting, interference) including 14 trials (4 practice trials and 10 experimental trials) each but with
different letters. Participants were asked to write the consonants to provide a record of performance. This is different
from typical clinical usage in which the person who administers the task writes down the participant’s responses.
During the baseline condition, participants heard three consonant letters at the rate of one letter per second and recalled
the letters in writing after a tone which occurred immediately after presentation of the letters. In the waiting condition,
participants heard three consonant letters at the rate of one letter per second and recalled letters in writing after a tone
that occurred 20 s after presentation of the letters. During this delay period, participants were instructed to wait quietly.
During the counting condition, participants heard three consonant letters at the rate of one letter per second followed
by a three-digit number. Immediately after hearing the number, participants were required to count backwards out loud
by threes until they heard a tone that occurred after a delay of 20 s. After the tone, participants were asked to stop
counting and recall the three consonants in writing. The number of subtractions performed was recorded. The four
versions of the MBPT were counterbalanced across participants. Participants heard three consonant letters at the rate
of one letter per second followed by a three-digit number.
The order of administration of the conditions differed between the versions of the MBPT. The order of the conditions
for versions MBPT-A and MBPT-C was: baseline, counting, and waiting. The order of conditions for MBPT-B and
MBPT-D was: baseline, waiting, and counting. Within each condition, the consonant trigrams were presented in a
random order. Scoring consisted of the total number of letters recalled in each condition, in any order. This administration
of our Brown–Peterson task is typical of clinically used one with the exceptions of the computerized presentation of
randomly assigned letter triads, the written recall and the single time interval in the waiting and counting conditions.

2. Results

Several analyses were performed to examine the psychometric properties of the MBPT. In a first step, ANOVAs
revealed that there were no significant mean differences between the four versions of the counting condition for both
younger participants, F(3, 103) = 2.08, p = .11, and older participants, F(3, 89) = 0.85, p = .47. Scores on the counting
condition obtained during two separate sessions were significantly correlated for both younger participants (r = .63)
and older participants (r = .71), suggesting that the measure is reliable.
Consistent with comparable level of education in young and older participants, there were no significant differences
between both age groups when scaled scores on WAIS-III subtests (Table 1) were compared (Arithmetic: t(97) = −1.58,
p = .12; digit span: t(198) = −1.75, p = .08; Digit Symbol Coding: t(197.89) = .98, p = .33; letter–number sequencing:
t(198) = −1.49, p = .14; Symbol Search: t(198) = .54, p = .59) suggesting that younger and older participants had com-
parable relative abilities.
Raw data from both age groups (presented in Table 2) were pooled together in order to have a sufficient number of
participants to run the factor analysis. Factorability of the correlation matrix was verified using Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin
2
(KMO) measure (.86) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (χ) (Ξ(136) = 1378.4, p = .00). Measures of sampling adequacy
(MSA), obtained for each variable, ranged from 0.748 to 0.915. Thus, each variable contributed to the definition of
factors. Principal axis factoring was used to obtain an initial solution, followed by an Oblimin axis rotation to obtain
the final one. This rotation procedure was used because the factors were expected to correlate to a certain degree.
The Oblimin rotation procedure seemed the most appropriate since the method allows correlations between factors
736 V.B. Mertens et al. / Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 21 (2006) 733–739

Table 1
Scaled scores of younger and older participants on WAIS-III subtests
Test Younger participants Older participants

M S.E. M S.E.

Arithmetic 10.47 0.30 11.15 0.31

Digit span 11.06 0.28 11.76 0.29
Digit symbol coding 11.59 0.25 11.26 0.23
Letter–number sequencing 11.21 0.23 11.72 0.26
Symbol search 12.74 0.23 12.57 0.21

(Fabrigar, Wegener, MacCallum, & Strahan, 1999). The correlation matrix is presented in Table 3. A two-factor solution
was chosen based on Velicer’s minimum average partial test because this method has been shown to be more accurate
compared to other procedures such as the criterion of eigenvalues greater than one (Kaiser’s rule) and the Scree test
(O’Connor, 2000). A loading criterion of 0.40 was used to interpret the factors (Stevens, 2002). The baseline and
waiting conditions of the MBPT were not included in the factor analysis because there was little variability in scores
on both conditions, 78% of participants obtaining perfect scores on the baseline condition and 71.5% on the waiting
condition.
Results of the factor analysis are presented in Table 4. The processing speed subtests of the WAIS-III, the logical
memory subtest of the WMS-III and other verbal memory measures loaded on a factor that could be described as a
memory and tracking of information factor. Performance after the intervening serial subtraction task loaded on a factor
that could be described as an auditory/visual working memory and complex attention factor and had common loadings
with working memory subtests of the WAIS-III. The spatial span subtest of the WMS-III and the recency and primacy
measures of the order recall task did not load significantly on any factor. The correlation between both factors was .46.
Independent samples t-test were used to examine differences between both age groups using factor scores (obtained
using the regression method). Younger participants obtained a better performance compared to older participants on
both factor 1 (young: M = .70, S.D. = .53, older: M = −.81, S.D. = .60, t(198) = 18.84, p = .00) and factor 2 (young:
M = .28, S.D. = .84, older: M = −.33, S.D. = .88, t(198) = 4.99, p = .00). To examine more specifically the impact of age
on the MBPT, performance of both age groups on the three conditions of the MBPT was analyzed. Younger participants
obtained significantly higher scores (per cent correct responses) compared to older participants on the baseline condition
(young: M = 99.89, S.D. = .57, older: M = 96.44, S.D. = 5.90, t(198) = 6.02, p = .00), the waiting condition (young:

Table 2
Raw scores of younger and older participants on neuropsychological tests
Test Younger participants Older participants

M S.E. M S.E.

Arithmetic 14.93 0.27 15.15 0.29

Digit span forward 11.58 0.21 10.84 0.22
Digit span backward 8.35 0.24 7.63 0.22
Digit symbol coding 86.79 1.26 58.03 1.32
Letter–number sequencing 12.22 0.23 10.00 0.28
Logical memory I 58.02 1.41 46.59 1.40
Logical memory II 77.72 1.13 62.75 1.77
MBPT-counting 76.97 1.55 62.47 2.66
Order recall-primacy 52.55 2.44 34.01 2.52
Order recall-middle 8.59 0.91 2.29 0.36
Order recall-recency 49.77 2.51 33.03 2.52
Spatial span forward 9.35 0.18 7.87 0.17
Spatial span backward 8.14 0.17 7.05 0.18
Symbol search 41.52 0.62 26.84 0.58
Verbal free recall-primacy 55.70 1.53 32.59 1.56
Verbal free recall-middle 33.82 0.92 20.40 1.00
Verbal free recall-recency 55.89 1.66 37.03 1.81
 V.B. Mertens et al. / Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 21 (2006) 733–739 737

Table 3
Correlation matrix
DSC BPC SS DSF DSB LNS SSF SSB LMI LMII VFRP VFRR VFRM ORP ORR ORM

ARI .19 .29 .15 .26 .37 .31 .17 .29 .28 .28 .13 −.07 −.03 .10 .16 .09
DSC .40 .83 .27 .29 .48 .39 .39 .47 .52 .48 .41 .51 .30 .31 .30
BPC .43 .33 .41 .55 .22 .28 .38 .41 .31 .22 .42 .23 .32 .13
SS .28 .28 .46 .44 .39 .41 .50 .43 .45 .55 .31 .36 .36
DSF .58 .45 .27 .23 .25 .17 .21 .12 .18 .11 .22 .17
DSB .56 .31 .29 .30 .25 .17 .13 .18 .12 .34 .10
LNS .37 .38 .35 .39 .36 .22 .32 .21 .29 .17
SSF .43 .30 .30 .25 .10 .19 .22 .16 .17
SSB .29 .37 .20 .19 .22 .22 .23 .09
LMI .68 .36 .28 .44 .23 .34 .21
LMII .41 .43 .50 .18 .43 .25
VFRP .29 .40 .39 .15 .37
VFRR .41 .16 .43 .30
VFRM .32 .33 .39
ORP .11 .24
ORR .31

Note. ARI = arithmetic; DSC = digit symbol coding; BPC = modified Brown–Peterson task-counting; SS = symbol search; DSF = digit span forward;
DSB = digit span backward; LNS = letter–number sequencing; SSF = spatial span forward; SSB = spatial span backward; LMI = logical memory-
immediate recall; LMII = logical memory-delayed recall; VFRP = verbal free recall-primacy; VFRR = verbal free recall-recency; VFRM = verbal
free recall-middle; ORP = order recall-primacy; ORR = order recall-recency; ORM = order recall-middle.

M = 99.44, S.D. = 1.18, older: M = 95.87, S.D. = 10.42, t(198) = 3.52, p = .00) and the interference condition (young:
M = 76.97, S.D. = 16.03, older: M = 62.47, S.D. = 25.70, t(198) = 4.85, p = .00) but the largest difference was found
for the counting condition. Younger participants also performed significantly more correct calculations (M = 7.63,
S.D. = 2.94) compared to older participants (M = 5.72, S.D. = 2.19) during the counting condition, t(183) = 4.99, p = .00.
Previous data from our laboratory using the same procedure indicated that the number of calculations performed during
the 20-s delay was not significantly related to the recall performance on the interference task but was significantly
associated with performance on the arithmetic subtest of the WAIS-III (Tsiakas, Gagnon, Awad, & Messier, 2004).

Table 4
Oblimin factor-pattern matrix
Variable Factor 1 Factor 2

Verbal free recall-middle .76 −.11

Symbol search .74 .15
Digit symbol coding .73 .14
Logical memory II .65 .13
Verbal free recall-recency .63 −.15
Verbal free recall-primacy .58 .03
Logical memory I .51 .21
Order recall-middle .50 −.09
Order recall-recency .39 .17
Order recall-primacy .39 .03
Digit span backward −.08 .82
Letter–number sequencing .22 .63
Digit span forward −.01 .62
Arithmetic −.08 .53
MBPT-counting .31 .42
Spatial span backward .24 .37
Spatial span forward .25 .34
Percentage variance 35.76 10.61
Eigenvalue 6.08 1.80

Note. MBPT = modified Brown–Peterson task. Factor 1 correlates .46 with factor 2.
738 V.B. Mertens et al. / Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 21 (2006) 733–739

3. Discussion

The following conclusions can be reached from the results of the present study. First, the factor analysis showed that
the performance in the interference condition of the modified Brown–Peterson loaded on a factor essentially comprising
the working memory index from the WMS-III and WAIS-III. This finding is partially in accordance with results from
a study that examined the relationship among tasks considered to assess prefrontal lobe functioning, including the
auditory consonant trigrams, and a battery of neuropsychological measures in a mixed sample of neurological patients
and control older participants (Boone, Ponton, Gorsuch, Gonzalez, & Miller, 1998). Results from this latter factor
analysis revealed that the auditory consonant trigrams loaded highly on a divided attention and short-term memory
factor and had common loadings with digit span, digit symbol, and a visual memory task (Boone et al., 1998).
Furthermore, Anil et al. (2003) developed a Turkish version of this task and showed that scores significantly correlated
with scores obtained on the digit span Backward task, a measure of working memory.
Second, results from our laboratory have shown that although arithmetic abilities (as measured by the WAIS
arithmetic subtest) were correlated with the number of correct subtractions performed during the interference task
of the MBPT, recall performance on the MBPT was not related to performance on the subtracting component (i.e.,
the number of correct subtractions performed) and thus, seems to be an adequate measure of working memory rather
than a measure of arithmetic ability as such (Tsiakas et al., 2004). This indicates that, regardless of the number of
calculations performed, which appears to reflect the individual’s level of arithmetic skill, the ability to recall under
conditions of short-term interference using the Brown–Peterson technique is similarly affected. Thus, it would appear
that the distractor task typically used in the Brown–Peterson technique does not have differential implications for
recall performance of the to-be-remembered stimuli in terms of the relative difficulty of the calculation task for each
individual. Rather, it serves to prevent rehearsal and encoding of the stimuli resulting in impaired recall relative to
conditions with no interference.
This conclusion is also supported by another study that found that arithmetic ability and information processing
were not associated with recall performance on the Brown–Peterson task (Coates & Laforce, 2003). In the present
experiment, the absence of a difference between young and older participants on the WAIS arithmetic subtest also
supports the idea that differences in MBPT performance were unrelated to arithmetic abilities.
A second observation is that younger participants obtained a better performance on both the memory and tracking
of information factor and the auditory/visual working memory and complex attention factor compared to older adults.
This result was not surprising since age effects have been found on the digit symbol coding and logical memory tasks,
starting at the age of 30 and less pronounced age effects have been reported on the digit span and spatial span tasks
over the age of 60 or older (Lezak, Howieson, & Loring, 2004). Older participants have also been found to recall
less words on the Verbal Free Recall task compared to younger participants (Messier et al., 2003). However, as noted
previously, inconsistent findings have been reported on the impact of age on the Brown–Peterson task. In the present
experiment, it was found that younger participants performed significantly better than older participants even though
both groups had similar scaled scores on WAIS-III subtests. When the impact of age on forgetting across several delays
in the MBPT was studied, a small significant difference between age groups was found on an 18-s delayed recall
(Floden et al., 2000). However, larger deficits and an increased slope of forgetting function were found when the level
of difficulty and the amount of items presented on the interference task were made identical for both groups suggesting
that, in a non-controlled situation, older adults may compensate by performing less of the interfering task. In our study,
participants were instructed to give as much value to the interference task as the letter recall and that the number of
subtractions was recorded thus explicitly emphasizing the requirement of a sustained performance in the distractor
task. This may explain why our results are closer to those of the controlled interference task of Floden et al. (2000)
where performance in the distractor task was monitored and controlled.
One limitation of our study was the high level of education of our participants that was associated with good
arithmetic abilities that prevented a comprehensive examination of the impact of education on the MBPT. Another
limitation is that this study was only conducted on healthy adults. It would be interesting to examine whether the same
factor solution would be found in various clinical populations. Finally, normative data will have to be obtained before
this test can be used widely.
However, normative data for a variant of this test using word stimuli have been published (Morrow & Ryan, 2002). In
summary, the MBPT appears to be a useful measure of working memory and age is associated with reduced performance
when test instructions emphasize the importance of the interfering task.
 V.B. Mertens et al. / Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 21 (2006) 733–739 739

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. V.M. was supported by a fellowship from
the Institute of Aging of the CIHR.

References

Anil, A. E., Kivircik, B. B., Batur, S., Kabakci, E., Kitis, A., Guven, E., et al. (2003). The Turkish version of the auditory consonant trigram test as
a measure of working memory: A normative study. Clinical Neuropsychology, 17(2), 159–169.
Bherer, L., Belleville, S., & Peretz, I. (2001). Education, age, and the Brown–Peterson technique. Developmental Neuropsychology, 19(3), 237–251.
Boone, K. B., Ponton, M. O., Gorsuch, R. L., Gonzalez, J. J., & Miller, B. L. (1998). Factor analysis of four measures of prefrontal lobe functioning.
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 13(7), 585–595.
Brown, J. (1958). Some tests of the decay theory of immediate memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 10, 12–21.
Coates, M.A., & Laforce, R. (2003). Strength of interference in the Brown–Peterson paradigm. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the
International Neuropsychological Society. Honolulu: USA.
Eustache, F., Rioux, P., Desgranges, B., Marchal, G., Petit-Taboue, M. C., Dary, M., et al. (1995). Healthy aging, memory subsystems and regional
cerebral oxygen consumption. Neuropsychologia, 33(7), 867–887.
Fabrigar, L. R., Wegener, D. T., MacCallum, R. C., & Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological
research. Psychological Methods, 4(3), 272–299.
Floden, D., Stuss, D. T., & Craik, F. I. (2000). Age differences in performance on two versions of the Brown–Peterson. Aging, Neuropsychology,
and Cognition, 7(4), 245–259.
Kapur, N. (1988). Pattern of verbal memory deficits in patients with bifrontal pathology and patients with third ventricle lesions. In M. M. Gruneberg
(Ed.), Practical aspects of memory: Current research and issues: vol. 2, (pp. 10–15). New York: Wiley.
Leng, N. R., & Parkin, A. J. (1989). Aetiological variation in the amnesic syndrome: Comparisons using the Brown–Peterson task. Cortex, 25(2),
251–259.
Lezak, M. D., Howieson, D. B., & Loring, D. W. (2004). Neuropsychological assessment (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Marié, R. M., Rioux, P., Eustache, P., Travère, J. M., Lechevalier, B., & Baron, J. C. (1995). Clues about the functional neuroanatomy of verbal
working memory: A study of resting brain glucose metabolism in Parkinson’s disease. European Journal of Neurology, 2, 83–94.
Messier, C., Tsiakas, M., Gagnon, M., Desrochers, A., & Awad, N. (2003). Effect of age and glucoregulation on cognitive performance. Neurobiology
of Aging, 24(7), 985–1003.
Milner, B. (1972). Disorders of learning and memory after temporal lobe lesions in man. Clinical Neurosurgery, 19, 421–446.
Morrow, L. A., & Ryan, C. (2002). Normative data for a working memory test: The four word short-term memory test. Clinical Neuropsychology,
16(3), 373–380.
O’Connor, B. P. (2000). SPSS and SAS programs for determining the number of components using parallel analysis and Velicer’s MAP test. Behavior
Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 32(3), 396–402.
Peterson, L. R., & Peterson, M. J. (1959). Short-term retention of individual verbal items. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 193–198.
Puckett, J. M., & Lawson, W. M. (1989). Absence of adult age differences in forgetting in the Brown–Peterson Task. Acta Psychologia (Amsterdam),
72(2), 159–175.
Richer, F., Décary, A., Chouinard, M. J., & Lepage, M. (1996). Working memory capacity is not preferentially affected by frontal excision. Brain
and Cognition, 30, 422–425.
Ryan, C., & Butters, N. (1980). Learning and memory impairments in young and old alcoholics: evidence for the premature-aging hypothesis.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 4(3), 288–293.
Spreen, O., & Strauss, E. (1998). A compendium of neuropsychological tests. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stevens, J. P. (2002). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (4th ed.). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Stuss, D. T., Stethem, L. L., Hugenholtz, H., & Richard, M. T. (1989). Traumatic brain injury: A comparison of three clinical tests, and analysis of
recovery. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 3(2), 145–156.
Stuss, D. T., Stethem, L. L., & Poirier, C. A. (1987). Comparison of three tests of attention and rapid information processing across six age groups.
The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 1(2), 139–152.
Tsiakas, M., Gagnon, M., Awad, N., & Messier, C. (2004). Addressing the differences in speed of processing of the intervening calculation task on
the modified Brown–Peterson task. Applied Neuropsychology, 11(2), 103–106.
Wechsler, D. (1997a). Wechsler adult intelligence scale-III. New York: Psychological Corporation.
Wechsler, D. (1997b). Wechsler memory scale-III. New York: Psychological Corporation.