Assessing the validity of memory complaints: Performance of brain-damaged and normal individuals on Rey's task to detect malingering

Abstract

Rey (1964) proposed a brief screening test to assess the validity of memory complaints and hypothesized that the ease of the task would mislead malingerers to perform more poorly even than persons with impaired memory due to brain injury. Lezak (1983) suggested cut‐offs, but only one empirical report on Rey's task could be located in the literature. That study by Goldberg and Miller (1986) supported Lezak's cut‐offs; however, the criterion groups were psychiatric and mentally retarded inpatients. In the present study, Rey's test, along with other neuropsychological tests designed to determine various types of memory dysfunction, was administered to brain‐damaged (n = 18) and comparison (n = 16) groups. The results again generally supported Lezak's cut‐offs.

The Rey 15-item memory test for malingering: A meta-analysis

“…That [3] Subjects with mental retardation 10/16 ? Bernard and Fowler [4] Normal subjects 16/16 16/16 Bernard and Fowler [4] Subjects with brain damage 18/18 18/18 Simon [11] Mentally ill forensic cases 12/14 ? Taylor et al [8] Subjects with severe brain damage 5/5 5/5 Schretlen et al [5] Normal 80/80 80/80 Schretlen et al [5] Subjects with brain injury 55/55 55/55 Schretlen et al [5] Subjects with severe psychiatric disorder 40/40 40/40 Schretlen et al [5] Subjects with mixed dementia 8/9 9/9 Schretlen et al [5] Subjects with neuropsychiatric disorder 26/34 34/34 Schretlen et al [5] Subjects with amnesia 8/10 10/10 Lee et al [6] TLE 93/100 96/100 Lee et al [6] Subjects with neurological disorders 37/40 38/40 Lee et al [6] Subjects with depression 61/64 64/64 Bernard [14] Controls 21/28 ?…”

“…Some studies had to be discarded, as they did not provide sufficient information on the way that individual subjects had scored, so that their data could not be pooled. A total of 13 studies were gathered [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Their results were pooled to generate the overall results.…”

“…Bernard and Fowler [4] examined the performance of patients with brain damage (most of whom had received a significant head injury) in comparison to normal controls. They confirmed that using a cut-off of nine items was able to exclude the vast majority of the cases with brain damage from being classified as malingerers.…”

Practical guidelines in the use of symptom validity and other psychological tests to measure malingering and symptom exaggeration in traumatic brain injury cases

“…Goldberg and Miller (1986) recommended a cutoff score of nine or more items. Bernard and Fowler (1990) used the Rey FIT to compare a brain-damaged population against a comparison group of mostly senior citizens. On the WAIS-R, the brain-damaged group's mean Full Scale I.Q.…”

Avaliação da simulação ou esforço insuficiente com o Rey 15-Item Memory Test (15-IMT): Estudos de validação em grupos de adultos idosos

“…Nesta base, para o 15-IMT têm sido propostos diferentes pontos de corte, considerando a pontuação no Ensaio de Evocação Imediata: 9 (por exemplo, Goldberg & Miller, 1986); 8 (Bernard & Fowler, 1990); 7 (por exemplo, Lee, Baker, & Gola, 1992); 6 (Arnett, Hammeke, & Schwartz, 1995). Outros investigadores recomendam pontos de corte mais elevados: 10 (Greiffenstein et al, 1996) ou mesmo 14 (DiCarlo, Gfeller, & Drury, citados em Frederick, 2002).…”