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Clinical and empirical applications of the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test

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Abstract

The Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (ROCF), which was developed by Rey in 1941 and standardized by Osterrieth in 1944, is a widely used neuropsychological test for the evaluation of visuospatial constructional ability and visual memory. Recently, the ROCF has been a useful tool for measuring executive function that is mediated by the prefrontal lobe. The ROCF consists of three test conditions: Copy, Immediate Recall and Delayed Recall. At the first step, subjects are given the ROCF stimulus card, and then asked to draw the same figure. Subsequently, they are instructed to draw what they remembered. Then, after a delay of 30 min, they are required to draw the same figure once again. The anticipated results vary according to the scoring system used, but commonly include scores related to location, accuracy and organization. Each condition of the ROCF takes 10 min to complete and the overall time of completion is about 30 min.

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  • 05 November 2009

    The Figure 1 that appeared in the original version of this article has been removed for copyright reasons.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by a grant (M103KV010007 04K2201 00710) from the Brain Research Center of the 21st Century Frontier Research Program, which is funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Korea.

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Correspondence to Jun Soo Kwon.

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Shin, MS., Park, SY., Park, SR. et al. Clinical and empirical applications of the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test. Nat Protoc 1, 892–899 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2006.115

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