MINICOG AND MINICOG RAPID ASSESSMENT BATTERY (MRAB)
MiniCog.prc (Palm OS application) and MiniCogWriter (Mac and Windows desktop scripting application) made up a beta software package (just MiniCog, for short) for scripting psychological tasks to run on a Palm OS PDA. TheMiniCog Rapid Assessment Battery (MRAB) was a package of nine short cognitive test scripts in the domains of attention, executive function, and problem-solving that ran in the MiniCog application. For a description of the software and MRAB tests, please see the MiniCog/MRAB User Manual and two articles cited below.
An alpha version of MiniCog for Windows-Mobile "Pocket PCs" was implemented, but had known bugs and was not extensively tested; eight of the MRAB tests – all but Cognitive-Set-Switching (CSS) – were implemented for the Windows-Mobile version of MiniCog.
MiniCog/MRAB development was halted by the Kosslyn Laboratory due to lack of funding in 2006, and we do not provide active support of the task battery or software package.
However, a pre-employment screening company, Criteria Corporation, has licensed the software from Harvard and developed a web-based version of the MRAB tasks as part of their portfolio of assessments. This online commercial suite is the only available current version of the tasks.
- Shephard, J. M., and Kosslyn, S. M. (2005). The MiniCog Rapid Assessment Battery: Developing a "blood pressure cuff for the mind." Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 76(6, Suppl.), B192-B197.
- Shephard, J. M., Kho, S., Chen, J., and Kosslyn, S. M. (2006). MiniCog: A method for administering psychological tests and experiments on a handheld personal digital assistant. Behavior Research Methods, 38, 648-655.
Contact Jennifer Shephard with further questions. (Last updated 9 June 2014.)
GROUPBRAIN PROJECT
More information about a 2008 project with Richard Hackman's lab to study the impact of neurocognitive processes and group interaction on collaboration in analytic teams can be found on the GroupBrain website.