Abstract
The Corsi block tapping task has been widely used in the past 20 years to assess nonverbal/visuo-spatial abilities. However, there have been considerable inconsistencies in the administration and scoring of this measure and, from a theoretical point of view, little effort has been put to interpret this task from a more general model of cognitive functions. Within a working memory paradigm, we presented the Corsi task in association with five different types of interference designed to tap either verbal, visuo-spatial, motor, or more central components. Results showed that, though visuo-spatial abilities are involved in the execution of the task, more central, coordinative abilities seem to play a greater role. In addition, we showed an evident role of motor components that may have often been underestimated. A second experiment featuring the verbal span task allowed us to exclude that results on the Corsi task could be interpreted as general undifferentiated interference effects. In conclusion, the Corsi task seems to tap a set of different abilities: This leads us to suggest that a number of different strategies could be used in the execution of the test and this could be the reason for the anomalous results often reported in the literature.