Skip to main content
. 2022 Mar 15;22:92. doi: 10.1186/s12883-022-02620-6

Table 1.

BOCA subscales, example questions, and scoring

Subscale Subscale description Max. Score
1. Memory / Immediate Recall The names of 5 animals are announced verbally. After a short pause, 16 buttons are displayed indicating the names of the 5 announced animals and 11 other random animals. The participant is expected to select the 5 announced animals. This subscale includes three attempts scored as follows: all five animals selected correctly on the 1st attempt: 2 points; all five animals selected correctly on the 2nd attempt: 1 point; otherwise, zero point. 2
2. Language / Prefrontal Synthesis Questions are announced verbally and the participant is expected to select the answer by pressing a picture on the screen.
Training: Integration of one modifier. E.g., ‘select the blue square,’ ‘select the green triangle.’ 0
Level 1: Integration of one modifier. E.g., ‘select the blue square,’ ‘select the green triangle.’ 1
Level 2: Integration of two modifiers. E.g., ‘select the large blue square,’ ‘select the small green triangle.’ 1
Level 3: Spatial prepositions on top of and under. E.g., ‘select the square on top of the circle,’ ‘select the circle under the triangle.’ 1
Level 4: Two objects integration. E.g., ‘If the tiger was eaten by the lion, who is still alive?’; ‘If the boy was overtaken by the girl, who won?’ 1
Level 5: Three objects integration. E.g., ‘The girl is taller than the boy. The monkey is taller than the girl. Who is the shortest?’ 1
3. Visuospatial Reasoning / Mental rotation The participant is expected to select the object, that, when rotated, is identical to the object on top.
Training: easy 0
Level 1: easy 1
Level 2: moderate 1
Level 3: challenging 1
4. Executive function / Clock test The participant is expected to calculate the time difference between the two clocks.
Training: easy 0
Level 1: easy 2
Level 2: moderate 1
Level 3: challenging 1
5. Attention The participant is instructed to click the announced digits in forward and backward order.
Training: Click the 4 digits in the order that you hear them 0
Level 1: Click the 4 digits in the order that you hear them 1
Level 2: Click the 5 digits in the order that you hear them 1
Level 3: Click the 3 digits in the backward order 1
Level 4: Click the 4 digits in the backward order 1
6. Mental math The participant performs mental math by adding or subtracting two numbers.
Training: Single-digit number addition. E.g., 7 + 6 =? 0
Level 1: Single-digit number addition. E.g., 7 + 6 =? 1
Level 2: One-digit number plus two-digit number. E.g., 7 + 16 =? 1
Level 3: Two-digit number plus two-digit number. E.g., 17 + 16 =? 1
Level 4: Two-digit number minus two-digit number. E.g., 37–16 =? 1
7. Orientation The participant is expected to select today’s month, year, and day of the week.
Level 1: What month is it today? 1
Level 2: What year is it today? 1
Level 3: What day of the week is it today? 1
8. Memory / Delayed Recall The participant is expected to select the five animals named at the beginning of the test. The score equals to the number of correctly named animals. 5
Total maximum score 30

Note. This table is reproduced from Gold et al. (2021) [18]