How long does the One-Touch Tower Planning Task take?
About 5 to 6 minutes, as listed in the test library.
Executive Function
One-Touch Tower Planning Task
Assess planning by judging, without moving any balls, the fewest moves that turn one Tower of London arrangement into another.
Useful for executive-function research, planning endpoints, and remote Tower of London-style batteries.
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Preview any test free after you sign up.
Executive function5-6 minUntimed
Preview
Cognitive test preview
What this task measures
Measures planning by asking participants to judge the minimum number of moves needed to transform one Tower of London arrangement into another.
Core constructs
- Planning
- Executive function
- Problem solving
- Look-ahead search
Research fit
- Executive-function batteries
- Planning and frontal-systems research
- Remote neuropsychology-inspired studies
- CANTAB-adjacent batteries that need touchless Tower of London coverage
Paradigm overview
One-Touch Tower Planning is a touchless Tower of London planning task. Participants compare a current and target arrangement of three colored balls and choose the minimum number of legal moves needed to transform one into the other.
The implementation generates non-proprietary Tower states programmatically and computes optimal move counts with breadth-first search. It uses the published one-touch, think-then-answer variant rather than a drag-and-drop execution task.
Key scoring outputs
First-Choice Solved
countNumber of problems answered correctly on the first move-count choice.
Higher is better
First-Choice Latency
msAverage time before the first move-count answer.
Lower is better
Correct-Choice Latency
msAverage response latency on correctly solved problems.
Lower is better
2-Move Accuracy
proportionAccuracy for 2-move problems.
Higher is better
3-Move Accuracy
proportionAccuracy for 3-move problems.
Higher is better
4-Move Accuracy
proportionAccuracy for 4-move problems.
Higher is better
5-Move Accuracy
proportionAccuracy for 5-move problems.
Higher is better
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Number of problems | 20 | 8 to 32 |
| Response timeout (ms) | 30,000 | 10,000 to 60,000 |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops and tablets. Participant devices
- Task text: English.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite this test
Paradigm source: Culbertson & Zillmer (2001); Tower of London planning paradigm.
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
Source papers
Culbertson WC & Zillmer EA (2001). Tower of London - Drexel University, Second Edition (TOL-DX) Manual.
N 5877-80
Research FAQ
Common questions about this online cognitive test
What device does a participant need?
Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops and tablets. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
First-Choice Solved, First-Choice Latency, Correct-Choice Latency, 2-Move Accuracy, 3-Move Accuracy, 4-Move Accuracy and 5-Move Accuracy. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
Which settings can a researcher change?
Number of problems (8 to 32) and response timeout (ms) (10,000 to 60,000). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
The test's own text is in English. Participant pages can be in Italian on yearly plans, but this test's screens stay in English.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
Every test: the full test list.
Run this test in your next study
Start free with 10 free participants on any test, then use participant credits or a yearly plan.