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13 Implicit Learning Across Isoproblems in the Tower of London Puzzle is Impaired in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease
Abstract Shallice’s Tower of London is popular for assessing problem-solving. One feature of the Tower of London puzzle is the existence of a special class of problems: isomorphic problems, as yet little studied, require identical moves, but the colors of the balls are permuted. Thus, difficulty is the same even if the problems look different. Prior work suggests that implicit learning occurs when a series of isomorphic problems is solved (“iso-effect”). In a computerized version of the task, problem-solving performance by 9 patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease was compared to healthy controls with regard to several measures of performance, including planning and execution time, moves, efficiency and errors. In general, patients needed more time and more moves to solve the problems, and their solutions were less efficient. Although both groups dedicated the same amount of their time to planning, controls found better solutions. Furthermore, controls showed learning across a set of five isomorphic problems (less time, fewer moves, increasingly efficient solutions), an effect demonstrably different from general learning. In contrast, patients did not improve their isomorphic problem performance. We thus confirmed an iso-effect in healthy participants and suggest that it may be related to implicit memory which is thought to be affected by Parkinson’s disease.
