Partial cross-validation of the Wechsler Memory Scale—Revised (WMS-R) General Memory—Attention/Concentration Malingering Index in a nonlitigating sample

• Published in: Archives of clinical neuropsychology Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 71 - 79
• Main Authors: Hilsabeck, Robin C., Thompson, Matthew D., Irby, James W., Adams, Russell L., Scott, James G., Gouvier, Wm.Drew
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Ltd 2003; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Attention; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Diseases - complications; Brain injury; Cognition Disorders - diagnosis; Cognition Disorders - etiology; Female; Humans; Male; Malingering; Malingering - diagnosis; Medical sciences; Memory; Middle Aged; Motivation; Neuropsychological; Predictive Value of Tests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychometrics. Diagnostic aid systems; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reproducibility of Results; Task Performance and Analysis; Techniques and methods; Wechsler Scales; WMS-R; Neuropsychological; WMS-R; Malingering; Brain injury; Human; Nervous system diseases; Memory Scale Wechsler; Neuropsychological test; Psychometrics; Cross validation; Revised drafting; Cerebral disorder; Test validation; Response falsification; Central nervous system disease; Lie detection
• ISSN: 0887-6177; 1873-5843
• DOI: 10.1016/S0887-6177(01)00180-9

The Wechsler Memory Scale—Revised (WMS-R) malingering indices proposed by Mittenberg, Azrin, Millsaps, and Heilbronner [Psychol Assess 5 (1993) 34.] were partially cross-validated in a sample of 200 nonlitigants. Nine diagnostic categories were examined, including participants with traumatic brain injury (TBI), brain tumor, stroke/vascular, senile dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (SDAT), epilepsy, depression/anxiety, medical problems, and no diagnosis. Results showed that the discriminant function using WMS-R subtests misclassified only 6.5% of the sample as malingering, with significantly higher misclassification rates of SDAT and stroke/vascular groups. The General Memory Index—Attention/Concentration Index (GMI-ACI) difference score misclassified only 8.5% of the sample as malingering when a difference score of greater than 25 points was used as the cutoff criterion. No diagnostic group was significantly more likely to be misclassified. Results support the utility of the GMI-ACI difference score, as well as the WMS-R subtest discriminant function score, in detecting malingering.