Verbal fluency and digit span variables as performance validity indicators in experimentally induced malingering and real world patients with TBI

Flipping the Script: Measuring Both Performance Validity and Cognitive Ability with the Forced Choice Recognition Trial of the RCFT

“…This surprising finding underlines the importance of empirically verifying even intuitive and logically appealing assumptions. Our results supported, instead, previously voiced theoretical concerns ( Giromini et al., 2019 ; McWhirter et al., 2019 ; van Helvoort et al., 2019 ) and published data ( Abeare et al., 2019 ; An et al., 2019 ; Hurtubise et al., 2020 ; Roye et al., 2019 ) about the epistemological ambiguity around the incentive status of control groups comprised of undergraduate research volunteers. Researchers long assumed that cognitively healthy university students assigned to the control condition would demonstrate their highest ability level by default.…”

“…An et al (2017) went as far as to suggest that an incentive to appear impaired and a lack of incentive to perform well are similar motivational states. Similarly, criterion grouping in studies based on experimental malingering can be considered a pseudoindependent variable (Hurtubise et al, 2020), as the only control investigators have in this circumstance is through instructions given, but does not extend to whether those instructions are executed.…”

“… Note . Shading represents the change in confidence in correctly classifying a given score as invalid (darker means more likely to be invalid); EI-5 MEM: Erdodi Index Five - Memory; EI-5 PSP: Erdodi Index Five – Processing Speed; CIM BDAE: Complex Ideational Material subtest of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Battery raw score ( An et al., 2019 ; Erdodi, 2019 ; Erdodi et al., 2016 ; Erdodi & Roth, 2017 ); DS WAIS: Digit Span subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (age-corrected scaled score; Erdodi & Abeare, 2020 ; Erdodi & Lichtenstein, 2017 ; Hurtubise et al., 2020 ; Reese et al., 2012 ; Shura et al., 2019 ; Spencer et al., 2013 ; Webber & Soble, 2018 ; Whitney et al., 2009 ); FCR HVLT-R : Forced choice recognition trial of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test – Revised ( Abeare, Hurtubise, et al., 2020 ; Cutler et al., 2021 ); Rey-15 FR: Rey Fifteen-Item Test free recall ( Boone et al., 2002 ; Lezak, 1995 ; Merten et al., 2005 ; O’Bryant et al., 2003 ; Poynter et al., 2019 ; Russeler et al., 2008); Rey WRT: Rey Word Recognition Test ( Bell-Sprinkel et al., 2013 ; Goworowski et al., 2020 ; Love et al., 2014 ; Nitch et al., 2006 ; Smith et al., 2014 ); Animals: Animal fluency T-score using norms by Heaton et al., 2004 ( Hurtubise et al., 2020 ; Sugarman & Axelrod, 2015 ); CD WAIS : Coding subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (age-corrected scaled score; Erdodi & Abeare, 2020 ; Erdodi, Abeare, et al., 2017 ...…”

“…Although the RCFT FCR may be unfit as a fine-tuned measure of memory functioning, it retains incremental validity over the Yes/No Recognition trialboth as an EVI and as an ability test. In fact, many empirically validated and widely used cognitive screening tests have similarly steep item-characteristic curves with psychometrically inactive left tails (Erdodi, Shahein, et al, 2020;Hilsabeck et al, 2015;Hoops et al, 2009). Of course, replication in larger samples is needed to determine whether these findings generalize to other populations.…”

“…However, based on the results of the original study, we hypothesized that the Yes/No Recognition and the RCFT FCR trials would be comparably sensitive to fluctuations in cognitive ability. Finally, we included a sample of students who were incentivized to perform well in order to address a separate limitation of the experimental malingering paradigm – variable motivation of research volunteers to demonstrate their maximal ability level as a control group ( An et al., 2012 ; Hurtubise et al., 2020 ; Lace et al., 2020 ; Roye et al., 2019 ). Given this added incentivizing, we expected the student controls in our sample to outperform Rai et al.’s (2019) control group.…”