Instrument

General description

Reliability data

Validity data

Tests of Memory Malingering (TOMM) (Tombaugh, 1996)

Consists of 2 learning trials and a retention trial. On each learning trial, the subject is shown 50 line drawings of common objects for 3 seconds at 1-second intervals. Subject then is shown 50 recognition panels one at a time. Each panel has a previously presented target and the subject is required to select the previous target, and explicit feedback on correctness of choice is given. Performance significantly below norms suggest malingering.

Internal reliability between trials is high (Trial 1 = .94, Trial 2 = .95, Retention Trial = .94)^a,c

Using a criterion cutoff score of 45 on Trial 2, TOMM had specificity rates of greater than 90% (Rees, Tombaugh, Gansler, & Moczynski, 1998; Tombaugh, 1996) ^a,c

Rey Fifteen-Item Test (FIT) (Rey, 1964; Lezak, 1983)

Consists of 15 items arranged in 3 columns by 5 rows. Because of item redundancy, the FIT is easy and only requires immediate recall of 3 or 4 ideas to recall most of the 15 items. Malingerers misjudge the difficulty of the task and perform poorer than severely intellectually impaired individuals perform.

Interrater reliability showed 95% agreement for item correct and 97% agreement for rows correct scores (Goldberg & Miller, 1986) ^a,c

Convergent validity with other measures of effort as, TOMM and Dot counting was moderate (.78) (McCaffrey, O’Bryant, Ashendorf, & Fisher, 2003; Nelson et al., 2003) ^a,c

Victoria Symptom Validity Test (Hiscock & Hiscock, 1989)

5-digit number is presented on a card for 5 seconds. Following a brief delay, another card with the correct choice and a foil is presented and subjects are asked to indicate the correct sequence they saw earlier. The correct answers can always be distinguished from foils by recognizing the first or last digit. Person is cued that this is a difficult task for those with memory problems. Malingerers perform poorer than expected based on norms.

Test-retest reliability for selected measures of the VSVT for compensation seekers ranged from .56 to .84 (Slick, Hopp, Strauss, & Thompson, 1996) ^a,c

VSVT showed superior classification accuracy compared to other procedures as, Rey 15-Item Test, 21-Item Test and the Portland Digit Recognition Test (Vickery, Berry, Inman, Harris, & Orey, 2001) ^a,c