Comparing Web-Based and Lab-Based Cognitive Assessment Using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery: A Within-Subjects Counterbalanced Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Computerised assessments already confer advantages for deriving accurate and reliable measures of cognitive function, including test standardisation, accuracy of response recordings and automated scoring. Web-based cognitive assessment could improve accessibility and flexibility of research and clinical assessment, widen participation and promote research recruitment whilst simultaneously reducing costs. However, differences between lab-based and unsupervised cognitive assessment may influence task performance. Validation is required to establish reliability, equivalency and agreement with respect to gold-standard lab-based assessments. OBJECTIVE The current study validates an unsupervised web-based version of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) against a typical in-person lab-based assessment, using a within-subjects counterbalanced design. The study tests: 1) reliability, the correlation between measurements across participants, 2) equivalence, the extent to which test results in different settings produce similar, or by contrast, different overall results, and 3) agreement, by quantifying acceptable limits to bias and differences between the different measurement environments. METHODS Fifty-one healthy adults (32 women, 19 men; mean age 37 years) completed two testing sessions on average one week apart. Assessments included equivalent tests of emotion recognition (Emotion Recognition Task: ERT), visual recognition (Pattern Recognition Memory: PRM), episodic memory (Paired Associate Learning: PAL), working memory and spatial planning (Spatial Working Memory: SWM; One-Touch Stockings of Cambridge: OTS), and sustained attention (Rapid Visual Information Processing: RVP). Participants were randomly allocated to one of two groups, either assessed in-person first (n=33) or using web-based assessment first (n=18). Performance measures (errors, correct trials, response sensitivity), and median reaction times were extracted. Analyses included intra-class correlations (ICC) to examine reliability, linear mixed models and Bayesian paired samples t-tests to test for equivalence, and Bland Altman plots to examine agreement. RESULTS Intra-class correlation coefficients ranged from 0.23-0.67, with high correlations in three performance measures (from PAL, SWM and RVP tasks, ≥0.60). High intra-class correlations were also seen for reaction time measures from two tasks (PRM and ERT tasks, ≥0.60). However, reaction times were slower during web-based assessments, which undermined both equivalence and agreement for reaction time measures. Performance measures did not differ between assessment modalities, and generally showed satisfactory agreement. CONCLUSIONS Our results support the use of CANTAB performance measures (errors, correct trials, response sensitivity) in unsupervised web-based assessments. Reaction times are not as easily translatable from in-person to web-based testing, likely due to variation in home computer hardware. Results underline the importance of examining more than one index to ascertain validity, since high correlations can be present in the context of consistent, systematic differences which are a product of differences between measurement environments. Further work is now needed validate web-based assessments in clinical populations, and in larger samples to improve sensitivity for detecting subtler differences between test settings.