Here - Tilburg University

Author and presenter
Koppenol-Gonzalez, Gabriela; Dept. Methodology and Statistics, Tilburg
School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Title
Latent Class Analysis:
Understanding planning ability measured by the Tower of London:
Identifying and characterizing cognitive strategies.
Abstract
The Tower of London (TOL) is a widely used instrument for assessing
planning ability. People may adopt different strategies when confronted with a
TOL problem. For instance, some people try to solve the problems by adopting a
trial-and-error strategy, whereas others try to look ahead and think through
every move before actually making the first one. It is obvious that some
cognitive strategies are more efficient than others and that strategy
effectiveness may interact with specific properties of given problems to be
solved.
TOL problem properties are directly observable, yet the cognitive strategy
that people use to solve the problems are not. Hence to study this, a technique
is needed that indirectly infers these cognitive strategies based upon the
available data. In this study, latent class analysis was used to identify and
characterize the most prominent cognitive strategies used when solving TOL-
problems.
The results suggest that four strategy groups can be distinguished which differ
with respect to preplanning time, effects of problem properties on performance
and overall performance. The findings offer an explanation for inconsistent
findings in the literature on the relation between TOL problem solving and
cognitive inhibition.