Feigning Cognitive Deficits on Neuropsychological Evaluations: Multiple Detection Strategies

Individuals undergoing forensic neuropsychological evaluation frequently stand to gain in some manner if neurocognitive dysfunction is diagnosed. As a result, neuropsychologists are customarily asked to test for neurocognitive feigning during the assessment. The current study employed an analogue design with a clinical comparison group to examine the utility of the TOCA (Rogers, 1996) as a measure of feigned neurocognitive impairment. Two groups of simulators (one cautioned about the presence of detection strategies and one not cautioned) were compared to clinical and normal control groups. Fourteen scales were developed based on five detection strategies: symptom validity testing, performance curve, magnitude of error, response time, and floor effect. Each was employed during both verbal and nonverbal tasks. Significant differences were revealed among groups when subjected to ANOVA. Classification rates from subsequent utility estimates and discriminant function analyses on the scales ranged from 58.8% to 100%. Combining strategies yielded a classification rate of 95.7%. The effect of cautioning simulators was modest; however, a trend was noted on some scales for cautioned simulators to appear less obviously impaired than noncautioned. Although the results require crossvalidation, preliminary data suggest that the TOCA is a sensitive and specific measure of feigned neurocognitive performance. Strengths and weaknesses of the study are discussed and directions for future research are proposed.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2000

Author dc:creator

• Bender, Scott D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rogers, Richard, 1950-
• Quinn, James
• Sewell, Kenneth W.
• Harrell, Ernest

• Neuropsychological tests.
• Malingering.
• neurocognitive dysfunction
• malingering
• detection strategies
• TOCA
• performance curve

Statement dc:rights

• Public
• Copyright
• Bender, Scott D.
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 47861100
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2734/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc2734

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc2734