Providing a brief corrective statement does not improve test performance in patients invalidating testing: A multisite, single-blind randomized controlled trial.

Performance below the actual abilities of the examinee can be measured using performance validity tests (PVTs). PVT failure negatively impacts the quality of the neuropsychological assessment. In our study, we addressed this issue by providing a brief corrective statement regarding invalidity to improve test-taking behavior.

Performance Validity Test Failure in the Clinical Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prevalence Rates.

Performance validity tests (PVTs) are used to measure the validity of the obtained neuropsychological test data. However, when an individual fails a PVT, the likelihood that failure truly reflects invalid performance (i.e.

Performance Validity and Outcome of Cognitive Behavior Therapy in Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Objective: There is limited research examining the impact of the validity of cognitive test performance on treatment outcome. All known studies to date have operationalized performance validity dichotomously, leading to the loss of predictive information. Using the range of scores on a performance validity test (PVT), we hypothesized that lower performance at baseline was related to a worse treatment outcome following cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and to lower adherence to treatment.

Effort and liberal acceptance bias in patients with schizophrenia.

A liberal acceptance bias is implicated in the formation and maintenance of delusions in schizophrenia. The present study tested the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia are more quickly satisfied with their task performance than controls despite poor objective performance. Fifty patients with schizophrenia and 50 healthy controls performed the newly developed copy figure task in which participants copy a complex geometrical figure up to eight times until they are satisfied with the result.

Feedback on underperformance in patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The impact on subsequent neuropsychological test performance.

Performance Validity Tests (PVTs) are used to measure the credibility of neuropsychological test results. Until now, however, a minimal amount is known about the effects of feedback upon noncredible results (i.e.

Subjective competence breeds overconfidence in errors in psychosis. A hubris account of paranoia.

Background And Objectives: Overconfidence in errors is a well-replicated cognitive bias in psychosis. However, prior studies have sometimes failed to find differences between patients and controls for more difficult tasks. We pursued the hypothesis that overconfidence in errors is exaggerated in participants with a liability to psychosis relative to controls only when they feel competent in the respective topic and/or deem the question easy.

Knowledge corruption for visual perception in individuals high on paranoia.

Studies revealed that patients with paranoid schizophrenia display overconfidence in errors for memory and social cognition tasks. The present investigation examined whether this pattern holds true for visual perception tasks. Nonclinical participants were recruited via an online panel.

Assessment of subjective cognitive and emotional effects of antipsychotic drugs. Effect by defect?

Antipsychotic medication represents the first-line treatment for schizophrenia. While it is undisputed that antipsychotics ameliorate positive symptoms, the exact cognitive and emotional pathways through which the effect is exerted has remained unclear. The present study investigated the subjective effects of antipsychotics across various domains of cognition and emotion in both patients with psychotic symptoms and patients with other psychiatric diagnoses.

Let's use those tests! Evaluations of crime-related amnesia claims.

Suspects awaiting trial often claim that they cannot remember important parts of their violent crimes. It is not unusual that forensic experts readily accept such claims and interpret them in terms of dissociative amnesia or, more specifically, a "red-out". This interpretation hinges on the assumption that heightened levels of stress implicated in violent crimes interfere with memory.

The classification of recovered memories: a cautionary note.

Traditionally, recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) have been classified as those emerging spontaneously versus those surfacing during the course of suggestive therapy. There are indications that reinterpretation of memories might be a third route to recovered memories. Thus, recovered memories do not form a homogeneous category.

Impact of emotionality on memory and meta-memory in schizophrenia using video sequences.

Background And Objectives: A vast amount of memory and meta-memory research in schizophrenia shows that these patients perform worse on memory accuracy and hold false information with strong conviction compared to healthy controls. So far, studies investigating these effects mainly used traditional static stimulus material like word lists or pictures. The question remains whether these memory and meta-memory effects are also present in (1) more near-life dynamic situations (i.

Susceptibility to misleading information under social pressure in schizophrenia.

Research looking at specific memory aberrations in the schizophrenia has primarily focused on their phenomenology using standardized semantic laboratory tasks. However, no study has investigated to what extent such aberrations have consequences for everyday episodic memories using more realistic false memory paradigms. Using a false memory paradigm where participants are presented with misleading suggestive information (Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale), we investigated the susceptibility of patients with schizophrenia (n = 21) and healthy controls (n = 18) to post hoc misleading information acceptance and compliance.

Veridical and false memory for scenic material in posttraumatic stress disorder.

The question whether memory aberrations in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) also manifest as an increased production of false memories is important for both theoretical and practical reasons, but is yet unsolved. Therefore, for the present study we investigated veridical and false recognition in PTSD with a new scenic variant of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, which was administered to traumatized individuals with PTSD (n=32), traumatized individuals without PTSD (n=30), and non-traumatized controls (n=30). The PTSD group neither produced higher rates of false memories nor expressed more confidence in errors, but did show inferior memory sensitivity.

Survival processing in times of stress.

Recent studies have found that processing information according to an evolutionary relevant (i.e., survival) scenario improves its subsequent memorability, potentially as a result of fitness advantages gained in the ancestral past.

Heart rate variability in response to affective scenes in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by psychophysiological abnormalities, such as an altered baseline heart rate and either hyper- or hyporeactivity to a wide range of stimuli, implying dysfunctional arousal regulation. Heart rate variability (HRV) has been established as an important marker of arousal regulatory ability. The aim of the present study was to examine HRV in PTSD under different affective conditions and to explore the role of potential moderating factors.

Cognitive underperformance and symptom over-reporting in a mixed psychiatric sample.

The current study examined the prevalence of cognitive underperformance and symptom over-reporting in a mixed sample of psychiatric patients (N = 183). We employed the Amsterdam Short-Term Memory Test (ASTM) to measure cognitive underperformance and the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) to measure the tendency to over-report symptoms. We also administered neuropsychological tests (e.

Detecting coached feigning using the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) and the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS).

Undergraduate students were administered the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) and the Structured Inventory of the Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) and asked to respond honestly, or instructed to feign cognitive dysfunction due to head injury. Before both instruments were administered, symptom-coached feigners were provided with some information about brain injury, while feigners who received a mix of symptom-coaching and test-coaching were given the same information plus advice on how to defeat symptom validity tests. Results show that, although the accuracy of both instruments appears to be somewhat reduced by a mix of symptom coaching and test coaching, the TOMM and SIMS are relatively resistant to different kinds of coaching.

[When the suspect hears voices: feigned imperative hallucinations].

Background: On occasion a suspect will feign psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations in order to trivialize their criminal responsibility. If doctors exercise only their clinical judgement, however, every now and then they will fail to identify a malingerer.

Case Description: A 38-year-old male was remanded in custody.

Underestimation of prior remembering and susceptibility to false memories: two sides of the same coin?

In two studies, we explored whether susceptibility to false memories and the underestimation of prior memories (i.e., forgot-it-all-along effect) tap overlapping memory phenomena.

Metacognitive beliefs in obsessive-compulsive patients: a comparison with healthy and schizophrenia participants.

Introduction: Distorted metacognitive beliefs are increasingly considered in theoretical models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, so far no consensus has emerged regarding the specific metacognitive profile of OCD.

Methods: Participants with OCD (n=55), schizophrenia (n=39), and nonclinical controls (n=49) were assessed with the Metacognitions Questionnaire (MCQ-30).

Autobiographical memory specificity among people with recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.

Individuals who report to have recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) almost by definition believe that these memories were previously inaccessible for them. We examined whether poor autobiographical memory specificity for all kinds of events (i.e.

Cure or curse? Ambivalent attitudes towards neuroleptic medication in schizophrenia and non-schizophrenia patients.

Neuroleptic non-compliance remains a serious challenge for the treatment of psychosis. Non-compliance is predominantly attributed to side effects, lack of illness insight, reduced well-being or poor therapeutic alliance. However, other still neglected factors may also play a role.

The corrective effects of warning on false memories in the DRM paradigm are limited to full attention conditions.

Effects of attention control and forewarning on the activation and monitoring of experimentally induced false memories in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm were investigated in a young adult sample (N=77). We found that reducing the degree of attention during encoding led to a decrease in veridical recall and an increase in non-presented critical lure intrusions. This effect could not be counteracted by a forewarning instruction.

Confusing action and imagination: action source monitoring in individuals with schizotypal traits.

To explore whether schizotypal traits may undermine source monitoring for actions, 67 undergraduate participants (21 men) completed the Schizotypal Personality Scale and were then given a source-monitoring task in which some specific acts had to be performed, whereas others only had to be imagined. Next, participants had to complete an old-new recognition task and ascribe the source, i.e.

Did I say that word or did you? Executive dysfunctions in schizophrenic patients affect memory efficiency, but not source attributions.

Introduction: Schizophrenic patients have difficulties in recognising previously presented verbal information and identifying its sources. The antecedents of these recognition and source misattributions are, however, largely unknown. The current study examined to what extent schizophrenic patients' lack of memory efficiency, their memory errors, and their source misattributions are related to neurocognitive deficits (i.