The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test online, what it is and how it works

October 15, 2026 · 8 min read · Tyamka team

How the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test works, what one attempt looks like card by card, where online versions live, and how a two-rule sorting game differs.

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test is a card sorting task in which you match each card to one of four key cards by a rule nobody tells you. The cards differ in color, shape and the number of figures. After each card you hear only "right" or "wrong", and once you have found the rule and kept to it for a while, it changes without warning. David Grant and Esta Berg described the task in 1948. Below is how a session goes, card by card, where the test comes from, what the online versions are, and how our sorting game borrows the idea while working in a different way.

How the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test works

Four key cards lie in a row in front of you. Each shows one to four figures of one shape in one color, and no two key cards share a color, a shape or a count. You get a deck of response cards built from the same features and place them one at a time under whichever key card you think fits. The examiner names no rule. They answer each placement with "right" or "wrong", and that answer is all you have.

There are three possible rules, color, shape and number. In the standard version described in the manual by Robert Heaton and colleagues, the rule starts with color, then moves to shape, then to number, and the cycle repeats. It changes after ten correct sorts in a row, and the test ends after six such categories or when the 128 response cards, two decks of 64, run out. Some modified versions change the rule after six correct sorts instead of ten, so the details depend on the version.

Here is one short attempt, in our own example cards. The hidden rule starts as color.

Every placement matches by one feature, so each answer is easy to read. Real decks also contain cards that share two features with the same key card, and then a "right" does not say which feature counted.

The row that matters most is the first "wrong" after the change. A person who keeps sorting by color after that answer makes what the test calls a perseverative error, an error of sticking to a rule after the feedback has said it no longer works. A wrong sort right after a run of correct ones, when the rule has not changed, is counted separately as a failure to maintain the set.

Where the test comes from

Grant and Berg published the task in 1948 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. The title of their paper calls it a "Weigl-type card-sorting problem", after an earlier sorting task by the psychologist Egon Weigl, whose study of sorting objects by color or form, first published in German in 1927, appeared in English in 1941. Berg described the method as a technique for measuring "flexibility in thinking" in a second paper the same year.

Later, Heaton and colleagues wrote a professional manual with fixed instructions and scoring, revised and expanded in 1993. A shorter version with one deck of 64 cards, the WCST-64, followed in 2000. Both are sold by the publisher PAR, which lists the test for ages 6.5 to 89 and gives 20 to 30 minutes for a session.

What the test is used for

Psychologists use the task in research on how people shift from one rule to another, often called set shifting or cognitive flexibility. Specialists also give the standard version as one part of a wider assessment, and they read the result only through the standard procedure and its manual. Scoring is less settled than the test's age suggests. A 2021 review by Stephanie Miles and colleagues found that studies count perseverative responses and perseverative errors in different ways, so numbers from two papers are not always the same measure.

A result from a web page cannot be read this way. The scores have meaning inside the procedure, with a trained examiner and the manual's tables, and not outside it.

Can you take the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test online

Yes and no. Computer versions exist in two kinds.

• Research versions, built for lab software and experiment platforms, where a researcher sets the number of cards and the rule-change criterion for a study.
• Free sites that offer a test "inspired by" the Wisconsin task, usually with their own cards and their own scoring.

The official test is sold by PAR to qualified professionals, in print and as a computer administration. Anything you find for free in a browser is a different implementation, and its result is not compared with any norm. The number of cards, the criterion of ten or six correct in a row and the way errors are counted change from one version to the next, so two online scores are not comparable either. Treat a free online version as a way to see how the task feels, not as a measurement.

Two Piles, a game on the same idea

Our Two Piles card sorting game is a short game built on the idea of sorting by a rule that can change. It is not the Wisconsin test and works differently on purpose.

By shape, circles go left and squares go right. By color, yellow goes left and blue goes right. Yellow cards are solid and blue cards are hollow, so the color rule can also be followed by fill. The picture shows level 3, which keeps the color rule for the whole level. The card is a hollow blue circle, so it goes to the Blue pile on the right, although the shape rule would send it left.

Rule changes begin at level 8, with 3 changes in 16 cards and 2.2 seconds per card. They grow more frequent until level 15, with 12 changes in 20 cards and 1.4 seconds per card. Levels 1 to 5 are free, and all level settings are our first guess and have not been tested on players yet.

The main difference is simple. In the test you have to work out the rule. In the game you are shown it, so the game is about switching quickly to a rule you can see, not about finding a hidden one. The same tension between a habit and a rule is behind the Stroop test and the arrow version of the task. Other games of this kind are on the focus games page.

Common questions

Is the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test free? The official test is not. PAR sells it to qualified professionals. Free browser versions exist, but they are separate implementations with their own rules.

How long does the test take? PAR gives 20 to 30 minutes for the standard version. The 64-card version is shorter.

Is Two Piles the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test? No. It borrows the idea of sorting by a changing rule, but the rule is always shown above the card and there are only two features, shape and color. It is a game, not that test.

Can an online card sorting test tell me something about my brain? No. A score from a web page is not compared with any norm and is not a diagnosis. In our game, points show how you did on that level on that day.

Sources

• Grant D. A., Berg E. A. (1948). A behavioral analysis of degree of reinforcement and ease of shifting to new responses in a Weigl-type card-sorting problem. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38(4), 404–411. DOI
• Berg E. A. (1948). A simple objective technique for measuring flexibility in thinking. Journal of General Psychology, 39(1), 15–22. DOI
• Weigl E. (1941). On the psychology of so-called processes of abstraction. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 36(1), 3–33. DOI
• Heaton R. K., Chelune G. J., Talley J. L., Kay G. G., Curtiss G. (1993). Wisconsin Card Sorting Test Manual, Revised and Expanded. Psychological Assessment Resources. PAR
• Kongs S. K., Thompson L. L., Iverson G. L., Heaton R. K. (2000). Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, 64 Card Version. Psychological Assessment Resources. PAR
• Kopp B., Lange F., Steinke A. (2021). The reliability of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in clinical practice. Assessment, 28(1), 248–263. DOI, PMC
• Miles S., Howlett C. A., Berryman C., Nedeljkovic M., Moseley G. L., Phillipou A. (2021). Considerations for using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test to assess cognitive flexibility. Behavior Research Methods, 53(5), 2083–2091. DOI
• PAR, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, product page, checked 2026-10-15. parinc.com