Malingering response styles on the memory assessment scales and symptom validity tests

This study identified malingering strategies of test performance and investigated their presence in the responses to computer-mediated versions of Rey's Dot-Counting and 15-Items tests, a forced-choice symptom validity procedure and the Memory Assessment Scales (MAS). Sixty volunteer subjects were randomly assigned to control (n = 30) or malingering (n = 30) groups. The control subjects were instructed to perform their best and the malingerers were instructed to fake a poor performance on the tests. As expected, malingering subjects scored significantly worse than control subjects on virtually all tests. Malingerers had slower response times on most tests. They also performed worse on recognition tasks in contrast to performance on recall tasks. Their response style was characterized by intentional wrong and random responding on recognition tasks. Malingerers did not show the expected worse-than-chance responding on the forced-choice symptom validity procedure. Current tests of symptom validity may not have sufficient sensitivity to detect milder forms of malingering.