ABSTRACT
In a similar vein, Shallice and Burgess (1981; see also, Goldstein et al., 1993) designed the Multiple Errands Task (MET) in which they required their participants to carry out a number of errands in Lambs Conduit Street, close to the National Hospital in London. For example, they had to buy certain items such as a brown loaf and a packet of fruit pastilles. Other tasks were more complex, such as obtaining the information needed to send a postcard. Particular rules were built into the whole task, such as having to spend as little money as possible. This test exposed planning and organizational deficits in otherwise high-functioning patients with frontal lobe lesions. Another, called the Six Elements Task (SET), required patients to organize themselves to carry out six tasks in a specific time limit, without breaking certain rules. This test also proved sensitive to deficits in patients with frontal lobe damage, who nevertheless performed normally on conventional tests of executive functioning, such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting test. These experimental studies have also given rise to standardized tests such the Zoo Map test and the Modified Six Elements test, which are now in routine clinical use as part of the Behavioural Assessment of Dysexecutive Syndrome (Wilson, Alderman, Burgess, Elmsie, & Evans, 1996).
