BACKGROUND There are limited data on physical activity in relation to trajectories in cognitive function. The aim was to examine the association of physical activity with trajectories in cognitive function, measured from repeated assessments over 10 years. METHODS We conducted a 10-year follow-up of 10 652 (aged 65±10.1 years) men and women from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a coh...

Historical evolution and cross-cultural differences in spatial abilities are analyzed. Spatial abilities have been found to be significantly associated with the complexity of geographical conditions and survival demands. Although impaired spatial cognition is found in cases of, exclusively or predominantly, right hemisphere pathology, it is proposed that this asymmetry may depend on the degree ...

Warning persons that attempts to malinger on neuropsychological testing will be detected is not an effective way of reducing malingering behavior. Rather, the literature on coaching consistently shows that malingerers who are warned of the presence of symptom validity assessment techniques are able to feign deficits in a less exaggerated and more believable fashion and therefore elude detection...

Response selection dysfunction contributes to processing speed impairment in schizophrenia. However, it is unclear if response selection impairment transcends sensory and motor modalities or is modality specific. To address this question, healthy subjects and individuals with schizophrenia completed reaction time (RT) experiments with different combinations of sensory cues (i.e. visual, auditor...

The determination of examinee effort is an important component of a neuropsychological evaluation and relies heavily on the use of symptom validity tests (SVTs) such as the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) and the Word Memory Test (WMT). Diagnostic utility of SVTs varies. The sensitivity of traditional TOMM criteria to suboptimal effort is low. An index of response consistency across three tri...

The use of neuropsychological testing to determine fitness to drive in people with neuropathology is likely to be an increasingly attractive alternative to on-road testing for many candidates for assessment. The Rookwood Driving Battery has been shown to have good predictive value for determining some who are likely to fail an on-road test in early studies. This study replicated earlier researc...

Participants coached to display poor effort on neuropsychological tests have successfully evaded detection. Recent research has documented that 89% college athletes instructed to perform poorly on a follow-up baseline ImPACT (Immediate Post-concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing) test were unable to bypass detection, but otherwise, sandbagging on baseline testing has not been directly stud...

Computerized neuropsychological assessment has integrated slowly into research and practice since the introduction of the personal computer. Though initial integration of technology to the laboratory and clinical setting utilized specialized hardware and software, newer generation assessment tools are integrated with "off-the-shelf" operating systems. Further, neuropsychological assessment is b...

Block-design construction tasks reliably assess cognitive deficits due to brain injury. We examined the important aspects of this task with four experiments using normal subjects. Two problem-solving strategies are identified: an analytic strategy in which subjects mentally segment each block in the design to be constructed and a synthetic strategy, which involves wholistic pattern matching. Th...

This joint position paper of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology and the National Academy of Neuropsychology sets forth our position on appropriate standards and conventions for computerized neuropsychological assessment devices (CNADs). In this paper, we first define CNADs and distinguish them from examiner-administered neuropsychological instruments. We then set forth position st...