Malingering response styles on the memory assessment scales and symptom validity tests

Abstract

This study identified malingering strategies of test performance and investigated their presence in the responses to computer-mediated versions of Rey's Dot-Counting and 15-Items tests, a forced-choice symptom validity procedure and the Memory Assessment Scales (MAS). Sixty volunteer subjects were randomly assigned to control (n = 30) or malingering (n = 30) groups. The control subjects were instructed to perform their best and the malingerers were instructed to fake a poor performance on the tests. As expected, malingering subjects scored significantly worse than control subjects on virtually all tests. Malingerers had slower response times on most tests. They also performed worse on recognition tasks in contrast to performance on recall tasks. Their response style was characterized by intentional wrong and random responding on recognition tasks. Malingerers did not show the expected worse-than-chance responding on the forced-choice symptom validity procedure. Current tests of symptom validity may not have sufficient sensitivity to detect milder forms of malingering.

A Comparison of Three Tests to Detect Feigned Amnesia: The Effects of Feedback and the Measurement of Response Latency

“…At least 2 days before testing, simulators received a scenario adapted from those used by Tombaugh (1997) and Beetar and Williams (1995). Simulators were asked to imagine that involvement in a car accident had rendered them unconscious for 15 min.…”

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

“…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 ? Guilmette et al [7] Subjects with brain damage 18/20 18/20 Guilmette et al [7] Subjects with depression 11/20 12/20 Beetar and Williams [13] Normal [5] Suspected fakes 6/7 4/7 Schretlen et al [5] Fake amnesia 0/47 0/47 Lee et al [6] Subjects with neurological disorder in litigation 6/16 6/16…”

“…Guilmette et al [7] Normals malingering 3/20 1/20 Beetar and Williams [13] Normals malingering 0/30 0/30 All studies All subjects 70/192 ¼ 36% 11/120 ¼ 9% is, specificity ¼ true negatives/true negatives þ false positives. A test with 100% specificity implies that no one without the condition is identified as having that condition.…”

“…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.…”

Classification Accuracy of the Portland Digit Recognition Test in Traumatic Brain Injury

“…In circumstances in which there is potential to gain from being impaired or disabled (e.g., workers compensation, personal injury litigation), patients may intentionally produce or exaggerate physical or psychological symptoms (i.e., malinger; Binder, 1993). Due to their dependence on patient cooperation and motivation, traditional neuropsychological measures are particularly vulnerable to malingering (Beetar & Williams, 1995;Heubrock & Petermann, 1998). Further, clinicians are not very good at detecting malingered performance in their standard clinical measures (Faust, Hart, Guilmette, & Arkes, 1988;Heaton, Smith, Lehman, & Vogt, 1978).…”