The Analysis Of Cognitive Processes In Solving Tower Of Hanoi

We examined performance in the Tower of Hanoi puzzle and investigated the relationships between measures of working memory and performance on the Tower of Hanoi in samples of 267 undergraduates. The moves to solution, every move latency and solution time were selected as dependent variables. Analysis of solution processing shows that the first move latency is longer to others. That may reflect subjects are planning the sequence of moves. In every difficult task, some key moves are important (such as the first, the fifth, and the ninth moves). The majority of errors occurred at those key moves in poor performers. We also investigated the relationships between five memory tasks and two centre executive function tasks with performance on the Tower of Hanoi. Solution time on the Tower of Hanoi task correlated highly with two centre executive tasks and three spatial spans, but not with the verbal working memory span. A stepwise regression analysis shows that random number generation is the first predict factor, and the Croise task is the second one. The results suggest that Tower of Hanoi performance may be determined by individual differences in inhabitation ability and spatial memory.