Design Recall Test (DRT)

1. Abstract

The Design Recall Test (DRT) is a standardized performance-based cognitive assessment developed by Jerome Kagan, Bernice L. Rosman, Deborah Day, Joseph Albert, and William Phillips in 1964. Introduced as part of their seminal investigation into conceptual tempo, visual scanning, and information processing styles in developmental populations, the DRT specifically operationalizes and evaluates analytic performance—a cognitive style and perceptual processing capacity defined by the child’s propensity and ability to fractionate, analyze, and differentiate complex visual-geometric configurations into discrete constituent components. In its standardized administration protocol, an examiner presents a target visual geometric design (the standard) to the child for a prescribed study exposure interval (typically 15 seconds), after which the target stimulus is removed from visual presentation. Following a brief retention delay, the subject is presented with a multialternative visual array comprising the target standard embedded among a series of carefully constructed perceptual distractors (variants) exhibiting systematic distortions in internal geometry, spatial orientation, contour symmetry, or component proportion. The child must accurately identify and select the single figure identical to the original standard. Analytic performance is operationalized psychometrically through precision metrics, specifically the absence of incorrect initial selections and the achievement of first-trial accuracy, alongside response latency parameters reflecting reflective versus impulsive cognitive tempos.

Extensively evaluated within developmental psychometrics, educational psychology, and neuropsychological inquiry, the DRT demonstrates that analytic deployment of attention interacts dynamically with visual short-term working memory, executive inhibitory control, and deliberate scanning strategies. While the instrument was originally devised without modern classical test theory item-response modeling, historical investigations have documented robust convergent validity with complementary cognitive style measures, such as the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT) and the Conceptual Style Test (CST). Furthermore, the instrument displays pronounced developmental gradients from early childhood across middle childhood, demonstrating predictive utility for formal educational achievements, reading acquisition, mathematical problem solving, and perceptual differentiation tasks. This comprehensive review examines the conceptual foundations, operational procedures, psychometric architecture, validity evidence, reliability characteristics, factor analytic status, and contemporary clinical and research relevance of the Design Recall Test.

2. Keywords

Design Recall Test, Jerome Kagan, Analytic Performance, Cognitive Style, Reflective-Impulsive Dimension, Conceptual Tempo, Visual Information Processing, Visual Working Memory, Perceptual Differentiation, Visual Scanning Strategies, Developmental Psychometrics, Geometric Figures Assessment

3. Authors

The Design Recall Test was developed by a team of prominent developmental psychologists and psychometric researchers at the Fels Research Institute (Yellow Springs, Ohio) and Harvard University, led by:

• Jerome Kagan, Ph.D.: Principal Investigator; Professor of Developmental Psychology at Harvard University and previously Senior Research Associate at the Fels Research Institute. Kagan was an internationally recognized pioneer in developmental psychology, cognitive styles, infant temperament, and emotional development.
• Bernice L. Rosman, Ph.D.: Research Psychologist at the Fels Research Institute and later Director of Research at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic; recognized for foundational work on child cognitive development, family systems, and assessment.
• Deborah Day, M.A.: Research Associate at the Fels Research Institute; contributed extensively to experimental protocols, child testing procedures, and empirical data acquisition across longitudinal cohorts.
• Joseph Albert, B.A.: Psychometrician and Data Analyst; specialized in behavioral observation coding, statistical analysis, and experimental apparatus design.
• William Phillips, Ph.D.: Research Collaborator and Experimental Methodologist; contributed to the stimulus design, psychometric scaling, and developmental comparisons of visual tasks.

Primary Institutional Affiliation at inception: The Fels Research Institute, Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA, in conjunction with the Department of Social Relations, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Design Recall Test (DRT) is the empirical quantification and diagnostic appraisal of analytic performance in developing children, particularly within the transitional developmental window of early to middle childhood (approximately ages 6 to 12 years; Grade 1 through Grade 6). During the early 1960s, psychological science experienced a fundamental paradigm shift away from purely monolithic, global conceptions of intelligence—such as the standard general intelligence quotient (Spearman’s g)—toward the systematic identification of distinct cognitive styles, conceptual dispositions, and modular information processing dimensions. Kagan and his colleagues recognized that two children possessing identical general mental ages or full-scale IQ scores on standard intelligence batteries could exhibit vastly divergent methods of organizing, encoding, decomposing, and retrieving complex sensory stimuli.

The DRT was specifically engineered to address critical clinical, educational, and theoretical inquiries:

• Operationalizing Visual Feature Decomposition: Standard memory tasks often evaluate visual recall through passive recognition of distinct semantic categories or unconstrained graphomotor reproduction (e.g., drawing from memory, such as in the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test). The DRT instead isolates the subject’s capacity to engage in active, fine-grained analytic parsing of geometric stimuli, separating primary visual apprehension from graphomotor coordination deficits.
• Differentiating Cognitive Tempo (Reflectivity vs. Impulsivity): In conjunction with the MFFT, the DRT serves as an empirical paradigm to observe how a child copes with response uncertainty. Under conditions where several alternative geometric variants appear superficially plausible, the child must withhold an immediate, impulsive response, systematically scanning each variant’s component parts to match the internal mental representation formed during the study phase.
• Educational and Clinical Diagnostic Applications: The DRT provides clinicians, neuropsychologists, and school psychologists with crucial diagnostic markers of visual-perceptual immaturity, executive dysfunction, and selective attention anomalies. Children exhibiting pronounced deficits in visual feature extraction frequently encounter severe challenges in early academic milestones, particularly orthographic decoding in reading (where subtle geometric differences distinguish graphemes such as ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘p’, and ‘q’) and spatial mathematical reasoning.
• Research Applications in Cognitive Development: In longitudinal and experimental research, the DRT has served as an objective metric to track developmental trajectories in cognitive maturation, investigating how cognitive styles evolve from global, undifferentiated perceptual processing toward differentiated, field-independent, analytic visual analysis.

5. Psychological Construct

The core psychological construct evaluated by the Design Recall Test is Analytic Performance (often conceptualized interchangeably in developmental psychometrics as an analytic cognitive style or visual-perceptual differentiation). Analytic performance refers to an individual’s persistent disposition and operational ability to dissect a complex, unitary stimulus complex into its constituent structural elements, selectively attending to specific geometric features, component angles, proportional relations, and spatial intersections, rather than reacting to the visual figure as an undifferentiated, holistic Gestalt.

Dimensions of the Construct

Within Kagan’s theoretical and empirical formulation, analytic performance encompasses several interrelated cognitive and executive operations:

• Part-Whole Visual Decomposition: The capacity to mentally isolate subcomponents of a geometric design without losing the relational schema of the global structure. An analytic processor explicitly encodes that a stimulus consists of, for instance, a major equilateral triangle bisected by a vertical line, flanked by two asymmetric obtuse angles, and intersected by a specific dotted horizontal line segment. In contrast, a holistic or non-analytic processor encodes the stimulus as an overarching ‘arrowhead’ or ‘tent-like shape’, leaving their mental representation vulnerable to minor perimeter variations.
• Visual Working Memory Maintenance: The ability to preserve an accurate, high-fidelity internal representation of a multifeatured visual stimulus across a brief temporal delay (the 15-second retention interval) in the absence of direct perceptual support. This requires the recruitment of the visuospatial sketchpad, actively updating and refreshing the structural schema against decay.
• Systematic Visual Feature Verification: Upon presentation of the response array, the construct requires sequential, systematic visual comparison across the alternative options. Analytic performance mandates that the subject execute targeted visual cross-checks between their stored internal representation and each response variant, methodically evaluating matching and non-matching elements rather than selecting the first option that generates a general impression of familiarity.
• Inhibitory Control and Uncertainty Modulation: The capacity to delay behavioral motor execution (pointing or declaring an answer) until exhaustive comparative verification is complete. The presence of closely matched distractors creates high response uncertainty; analytic performance is inherently dependent upon suppressing impulsive responding.

Behavioral Manifestations and Contrast Profiles

To illustrate the operationalization of the construct, consider the contrast between high and low analytic performers on a complex DRT item comprising a symmetrical polygon surrounded by minor eccentric perimeter markings:

A child demonstrating high analytic performance methodically divides the study interval into targeted visual fixations across the cardinal axes and peripheral features. During the multialternative test presentation, their visual fixations (as corroborated by eye-tracking methodologies in subsequent experimental literature) demonstrate rapid, repetitive saccades between corresponding features across the alternative designs. The child deliberately rejects distractor figures that share the global configuration but alter the internal angle by a few degrees, successfully identifying the standard on the first trial.

Conversely, a child demonstrating low analytic performance (or a non-analytic, impulsive approach) views the initial standard globally, frequently shifting gaze away from the stimulus before the full exposure time elapses. Upon presentation of the array, the child immediately selects an incorrect variant based upon a global perceptual match—such as selecting a variant with an identical global contour, completely failing to notice that the internal hatching lines run horizontally rather than obliquely. Thus, analytic performance is strictly quantified by the absence of initial errors, establishing first-trial success as the quintessential criterion measure.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Design Recall Test is grounded in mid-twentieth-century cognitive psychology, perceptual development theories, and the construct of cognitive style. Kagan and his colleagues developed their theoretical framework at the intersection of three major foundational movements: Heinz Werner’s orthogenetic principle of development, Herman Witkin’s theory of field dependence-independence, and Kagan’s own formulation of conceptual tempo (the reflection-impulsivity dimension).

1. The Orthogenetic Principle of Cognitive Development

A primary theoretical underpinning of the DRT is Heinz Werner’s comparative developmental psychology, which postulates the orthogenetic principle: developmental progression uniformly advances from an initial state of relative globality, diffuseness, and lack of differentiation toward states of increasing differentiation, articulation, and hierarchic integration. Kagan et al. hypothesized that young children perceive their environment predominantly in syncretic, global wholes. As the central nervous system matures and environmental learning accumulates, the child develops an ‘analytic attitude’, gaining the cognitive flexibility to deliberately segment holistic percepts into articulated parts. The DRT was constructed to capture this developmental transition from syncretic-global processing to differentiated-analytic processing.

2. Witkin’s Perceptual Differentiation and Field Independence

The construct of analytic performance on the DRT shares profound theoretical synergy with Herman Witkin’s theory of psychological differentiation and the construct of field independence. Witkin’s work, operationalized via tests like the Embedded Figures Test (EFT), posited that individuals differ systematically in their ability to overcome an embedding visual context to isolate a hidden target figure. Kagan expanded this conceptualization beyond perceptual ‘un-embedding’ to memory and conceptual categorization. In the DRT, the target figure is not physically embedded within a distracting background; rather, the critical discriminating features are mentally embedded within competing, highly similar alternative memories. Analytic processing enables the individual to isolate, stabilize, and retrieve the exact feature set required to distinguish the true target from subtle foil designs.

3. Kagan’s Reflection-Impulsivity Framework and Conceptual Tempo

The most direct theoretical driver for the DRT’s structural design is Jerome Kagan’s own theory of Conceptual Tempo. In tasks where an immediate solution is not self-evident and several plausible alternatives exist, children experience cognitive response uncertainty. Kagan theorized that children fall along a continuous spectrum governed by two primary parameters: response latency and response precision. The theoretical matrix yields two core typologies:

• Reflective Individuals: Characterized by extended response latencies and low error rates. They experience an adaptive anxiety over committing an error, which drives prolonged scanning, active self-monitoring, and exhaustive feature matching prior to committing to a behavioral decision.
• Impulsive Individuals: Characterized by short response latencies and high error rates. They display an orientation toward rapid task completion, lower tolerance for sustained response uncertainty, and minimal feature cross-checking, resulting in premature behavioral responses.

The DRT embodies this theoretical dynamic: because the standard must be recalled after a 15-second delay, uncertainty is magnified. Success is virtually impossible through rapid, superficial guessing; it demands the structured, reflective, and analytic processing that Kagan posited as foundational to mature human intellect.

7. Validity

Validation studies for the Design Recall Test, initiated in Kagan et al.’s (1964) foundational monograph and continued across subsequent developmental investigations, provide substantial evidence regarding its construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity.

Construct and Developmental Validity

Construct validity is primarily demonstrated by the test’s sensitivity to developmental progression. In Kagan et al.’s original cross-sectional and longitudinal cohorts of primary school children (Grades 1 through 4), analytic performance scores on the DRT demonstrated a statistically significant, monotonic increase as a function of age. First-grade children committed significantly more initial errors and exhibited lower rates of first-trial accuracy compared to third- and fourth-grade children ($p < .001$). This developmental trajectory directly supported the theoretical proposition that analytic feature extraction is an ontogenetically evolving cognitive capacity.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity was established by examining the statistical correlations between the DRT and other standardized tasks designed to measure analytic conceptual attitudes and reflection-impulsivity:

• Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT): The DRT correlates significantly with performance on the MFFT. Children classified as reflective on the MFFT (slow response times, low errors) committed markedly fewer errors on the DRT ($r = -.38$ to $-.52$, $p < .01$). Conversely, impulsive children on the MFFT exhibited frequent failure on initial DRT trials.
• Conceptual Style Test (CST): Kagan evaluated the relationship between the DRT and the CST (where children group triads of familiar objects based on analytic-descriptive, relational, or categorical-inferential themes). High analytic performance on the DRT was positively correlated with the production of analytic-descriptive sorting responses on the CST ($r = .34$ to $.48$, $p < .01$), verifying that visual feature memory taps into the broader psychological construct of an analytic cognitive disposition.
• Embedded Figures Test (EFT): Performance on the DRT correlated moderately with speed and accuracy on the Children’s Embedded Figures Test ($r = .31$ to $.45$), validating its link to perceptual un-embedding and spatial differentiation.

Discriminant Validity

Crucially, Kagan and his colleagues demonstrated that analytic performance on the DRT is not merely an artifact of general verbal intelligence. Correlations between the DRT error scores and standardized verbal IQ measures (such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Verbal IQ and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale) were consistently low to negligible, typically ranging from $r = -.10$ to $r = -.22$ (often failing to reach statistical significance). This establishes robust discriminant validity, demonstrating that the DRT captures a distinct stylistic and perceptual processing dimension independent of general verbal knowledge and crystallized linguistic capability.

Predictive and Academic Validity

Longitudinal tracking of primary school children revealed that early analytic performance measured by the DRT and related instruments significantly predicted reading readiness and early word recognition accuracy. Children with higher analytic scores at Grade 1 exhibited superior visual discrimination of graphemic patterns and fewer letter-reversal errors (e.g., confusing ‘was’ and ‘saw’ or ‘b’ and ‘d’) at Grade 2 and Grade 3, confirming the real-world predictive validity of the measure for academic competencies requiring fine-grained visual analysis.

8. Reliability

The psychometric evaluation of reliability for performance-based developmental tests developed in the 1960s poses unique methodological considerations. In the original 1964 monograph, classical internal consistency coefficients (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha) were not computed under modern psychometric frameworks; however, subsequent studies, replication efforts, and adjacent investigations into Kagan’s test battery yielded detailed reliability metrics.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability is a critical requirement for any measurement tool claiming to assess a stable cognitive style or disposition. Investigations evaluating test-retest reliability across intervals spanning from 3 weeks to 1 year documented the following characteristics:

• Short-Term Stability (2 to 4 Weeks): In primary school samples, short-term test-retest reliability coefficients for total error scores ranged between $r_{tt} = .68$ and $r_{tt} = .79$, indicating adequate stability for an experimental performance assessment administered to young children.
• Long-Term Stability (6 to 12 Months): Across a full academic school year, test-retest correlations remained moderate ($r_{tt} = .52$ to $.61$). While natural cognitive maturation, neurological development, and formal schooling incrementally enhance performance, the relative rank-order positioning of children within their peer cohorts regarding analytic versus non-analytic styles remained remarkably stable.

Internal Consistency and Split-Half Reliability

Estimates of internal consistency derived from odd-even split-half reliability protocols, corrected using the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula, yielded coefficients typically ranging between $.70$ and $.82$ across various elementary school cohorts. Factors influencing reliability include the number of test items administered (shortened experimental forms yielding lower stability, $\alpha \approx .65$, whereas full 12-to-16 item forms achieved values exceeding $.80$) and the developmental age of the sample, with older children (Grades 3 to 5) demonstrating more consistent performance profiles than preschool and kindergarten participants.

Inter-Rater and Scoring Reliability

Because scoring on the DRT is strictly objective—based upon the unambiguous recording of whether the child’s initial physical selection corresponds to the keyed target figure or a distractor foil—inter-rater scoring reliability approaches near-perfect agreement ($r = .98$ to $1.00$). Discrepancies occur only if an examiner fails to accurately document intermediate self-corrections or ambiguous pointing behaviors, which standardized administration instructions explicitly guard against.

9. Factor Analysis

Although the initial 1964 monograph did not employ modern structural equation modeling (SEM) or confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the Design Recall Test was subsequently subjected to multiple exploratory factor analyses (EFA) during the late 1960s and 1970s, as psychometricians sought to map the structural taxonomy of cognitive styles, perceptual speed, and visual memory.

Exploratory Factor Analytic Findings

When the DRT was factor-analyzed alongside comprehensive test batteries—including the Matching Familiar Figures Test, the Children’s Embedded Figures Test, the Primary Mental Abilities battery, and subtests of the WISC—factor analytic solutions consistently extracted two to three primary underlying dimensions:

• Factor 1: Visual-Perceptual Analysis and Differentiation: The DRT consistently loaded heavily on a dedicated perceptual analysis factor (typical factor loadings ranging from $lambda = .58$ to $lambda = .74$). This factor was marked by tasks requiring the mental deconstruction of complex visual configurations, high visual acuity, and fine visual discrimination. The Children’s Embedded Figures Test and the Block Design subtest of the WISC loaded predominantly onto this identical dimension.
• Factor 2: Reflection-Impulsivity / Decision Latency: In structural solutions incorporating response time metrics, the latency parameters of the DRT and MFFT formed a distinct tempo factor (loadings $lambda = .65$ to $.82$). This confirmed that performance on the DRT involves not only a purely spatial memory capability but also an executive pacing factor governing response inhibition under conditions of visual ambiguity.
• Factor 3: General Verbal-Crystallized Ability: The DRT consistently exhibited negligible or near-zero cross-loadings on verbal and crystallized intelligence factors (loadings frequently below $lambda = .20$), reinforcing the factor purity of the instrument as an assessment of non-verbal analytic processing.

Implications for Structural Models

Modern cognitive psychometrics views the DRT within a hierarchical framework of cognitive abilities. In alignment with the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory, the DRT spans across Visual Processing ($Gv$)—specifically visual memory ($Mv$) and spatial relations ($V4$)—and the broad domain of Fluid Reasoning ($Gf$). The test items behave as structurally coherent indicators of visual feature analysis, with factor uniqueness driven primarily by the short-term working memory delay component that differentiates the DRT from simultaneous matching tasks like the MFFT.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Design Recall Test is an individual, performance-based psychological test administered via a standardized pictorial presentation protocol. Below are its structural, administrative, and scoring specifications:

• Instrument Type: Standardized visual-perceptual and cognitive style performance test (pictorial stimulus-matching paradigm).
• Target Population: Human children, typically between the ages of 6 and 12 years (primary and middle elementary grades; Male and Female). May be adapted for experimental research in adolescent or clinical populations.
• Administration Format: Individual, face-to-face administration conducted by a trained psychometrician, psychologist, or educational researcher in a quiet room free from visual distractions.
• Stimulus Materials:
  • A standardized set of sample (practice) stimulus cards and formal test stimulus plates featuring abstract geometric line designs.
  • Each target item consists of a single geometric standard card and a corresponding multialternative response plate.
  • The response plate displays an array of geometrically similar variants (typically 4 to 6 options), exactly one of which is identical in all dimensions to the standard, while the remaining variants feature systematic, minor structural distortions.
• Administration Protocol:
  • Step 1 (Instruction and Practice): The examiner instructs the child that they will be shown a design to study carefully. Practice trials are administered to confirm understanding.
  • Step 2 (Study Phase): The target geometric standard is presented directly in front of the child for a precise exposure period of 15 seconds. The child is directed to inspect its lines, shapes, and parts.
  • Step 3 (Retention Delay): The target card is removed completely from the child’s visual field for a standardized brief delay interval.
  • Step 4 (Test / Identification Phase): The multialternative response array is placed before the child. The child must inspect the alternatives and select the one design that is identical to the standard previously viewed.
  • Step 5 (Recording and Feedback): The examiner records the child’s first selection, subsequent selections (if multiple attempts are permitted), and optionally the latency from array presentation to initial choice.
• Scoring Metrics:
  • Analytic Performance Score (First-Trial Accuracy): The primary psychometric index. Analytic performance is operationalized strictly as the absence of incorrect initial guesses. A score of 1 is awarded if the correct standard is identified on the very first attempt; a score of 0 is assigned if any distractor is chosen first. Total score equals the sum of first-trial correct choices across all test items.
  • Total Error Score: The cumulative number of incorrect selections made across all items before finding the correct design (in protocols that require testing to correct identification).
  • Response Latency (Optional): The elapsed time in seconds from array presentation to the first pointing response, utilized in cognitive tempo research to classify reflective versus impulsive styles.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Design Recall Test was officially published in 1964 within the landmark research monograph titled “Information processing in the child: Significance of analytic and reflective attitudes”, authored by Jerome Kagan, Bernice L. Rosman, Deborah Day, Joseph Albert, and William Phillips, published by the American Psychological Association (APA) in Psychological Monographs: General and Applied.

• Test Year: 1964.
• Commercial Availability: The DRT was never developed, packaged, or distributed as a proprietary, standalone commercial test kit by commercial publishing houses (such as Pearson Clinical, Western Psychological Services, or PAR).
• Fee: There are no commercial licensing fees or purchase costs required to use the test. It exists within the academic and scientific literature.
• Permissions and Research Usage: Consistent with standard academic conventions for historical assessment tools published in scientific journals, qualified researchers, clinical neuropsychologists, and educators may utilize and adapt the experimental paradigm for non-commercial scientific, teaching, and research purposes, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution and citation are rendered to Kagan et al. (1964) and the American Psychological Association. Researchers seeking archival photographic plates or full item designs from historical research cohorts are advised to consult the archival monograph or contact university research repositories maintaining historical records of the Fels Longitudinal Study.

12. References

• Kagan, J., Rosman, B. L., Day, D., Albert, J., & Phillips, W. (1964). Information processing in the child: Significance of analytic and reflective attitudes. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 78(1), 1–37. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093830
• Kagan, J. (1965). Reflection-impulsivity and reading ability in primary grade children. Child Development, 36(3), 609–628. https://doi.org/10.2307/1126908
• Kagan, J. (1966). Reflection-impulsivity: The generality and dynamics of conceptual tempo. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 71(1), 17–24. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0022886
• Messer, S. B. (1976). Reflection-impulsivity: A review. Psychological Bulletin, 83(6), 1026–1052. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.83.6.1026
• Werner, H. (1948). Comparative psychology of mental development. International Universities Press.
• Witkin, H. A., Dyk, R. B., Faterson, H. F., Goodenough, D. R., & Karp, S. A. (1962). Psychological differentiation: Studies of development. John Wiley & Sons.
• Zelniker, T., & Jeffrey, W. E. (1976). Reflective and impulsive children: Strategies of information processing underlying differences in problem solving. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 41(5), 1–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/1165955

13. Items of the Scale