Little Man Test - ABCD
FREE for use with an Inquisit Lab or Inquisit Web license.Background
The Little Man Test/Task is a cognitive assessment tool to measure spatial reasoning and is credited to C. J. Acker and W. Acker in 1982 as part of the Maudsley Automated Psychological Assistant (MAPA) battery. It is considered a ‘humanoid’ version of the standard mental rotation tasks, focusing on spatial relationships regarding a person (the ‘little man’) as opposed to cube objects. The Little Man task is suitable for research with children.
The Little Man task is used as part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study®), a decade long longitudinal study on brain development and child health supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The ABCD Little Man task is run on tablets (in-person testing) and on smartphones (remote testing).
Task Procedure
In the ABCD Little Man Task a participant sees a simple figure holding an object in its left or right hand. The figure may be presented upside down, rightside up, facing or turning away from the participant. The participant has to decide in which hand the Little Man holds the object and needs to press the left or right response button as fast as possible. To start the next trial, the participant is asked to return the response finger back to the gray 'Home Button' at the bottom of the screen after each response. During practice trials, the participant receives detailed performance feedback. No such feedback is provided during the test trials.
What it Measures
The Little Man Test is an assessment tools of spatial reasoning abilities (in children)
Psychological domains
- General Intelligence: Ability to learn from experience, adapt to new environments, and apply knowledge to solve problems
- Spatial Reasoning: Ability to mentally visualize, organize, and transform objects
- Visuospatial Working Memory: Temporary storage and active manipulation of visual and spatial information
Main Performance Metrics
- Accuracy: Number of correct (error) responses/Proportion Correct (Incorrect) Responses/ Percent Correct (incorrect) Responses
- Decision Speed: Response times (in ms) of correct responses
Psychiatric Conditions
General Mental Rotation performance tends to be impaired in patients with the following psychiatric conditions:
- Alzheimer's Disease (AD)
- Huntington's Disease (HD)
- Parkinson's Disease (PD)
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
- Schizophrenia
Available Test Variations
The mental rotation task for adolescents used in the ABCD Consortium's longitudinal study on cognitive development from childhood to early adulthood.
The mental rotation task for adolescents used in the ABCD Consortium's longitudinal study on cognitive development from childhood to early adulthood.
References
Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Little Man Test - ABCD.
Acker, W., & Acker, C. F. (1982). Bexley-Maudsley Automated Psychological Screening. NFER-Nelson.
Luciana, M, Bjork, J.M, Nagel, B.J, Barch, D.M, Gonzalez, R, Nixon, S.J, & Banich, M.T. (2018). Adolescent neurocognitive development and impacts of substance use: Overview of the adolescent brain cognitive development (ABCD) baseline neurocognition battery. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 32, 67-79.
Links
Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD). The NIH funded ABCD Study is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States, tracking biological and behavioral development of 10,000 participants from childhood to adulthood..