Revisiting Daubert: Judicial Gatekeeping and Expert Ethics in Court
This article calls for pragmatic modifications to legal practices for the admissibility of scientific evidence, including forensic psychological science. We submit thatDaubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993) and the other two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court trilogy on expert evidence have largely failed to accomplish their gatekeeping goals to assure the reliability of scientific evidence admitted in court. Reliability refers to validity in psychological terms. Part of the problem withDaubert ’s application in court is the gatekeeping function that it ascribes to judges. MostDaubert admissibility challenges a...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - October 21, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A Response to Rogers and Colleagues ’ (2020) Analysis of a “Trio” of SIRS vs. SIRS-2 Comparison Studies
AbstractThe Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms, 2nd Edition (SIRS-2; Rogers et al. in Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS), 2nd Edition, Professional Manual, 2010), is a revised version of the SIRS, a measure for assessing feigned psychiatric symptoms. Three independent studies (i.e., Green et al. in Assessment, 20, 210 –218,2013; Tarescavage& Glassmire in Law and Human Behavior, 40, 488 –502,2016; Tylicki et al. in Psychological Assessment, 30, 1144 –1159,2018) compared the utility of the original SIRS to the SIRS-2 with results showing that the SIRS-2 scoring algorithm produces a significan...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - October 8, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Detecting Negative Response Bias Within the Trauma Symptom Inventory –2 (TSI-2): a Review of the Literature
AbstractThis systematic review was performed to summarize existing research on the symptom validity scales within the Trauma Symptom Inventory –Second Edition (TSI-2), a relatively new self-report measure designed to assess the psychological sequelae of trauma. The TSI-2 has built-in symptom validity scales to monitor response bias and alert the assessor of non-credible symptom profiles. The Atypical Response scale (ATR) was designed to identify symptom exaggeration or fabrication. Proposed cutoffs on the ATR vary from ≥ 7 to ≥ 15, depending on the assessment context. The limited evidence available suggests t...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - October 7, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Exploring the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis
AbstractGreater attention is being paid to performance validity in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), though limited work has examined symptom validity measures in this population. Extensive previous literature has examined the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) across diverse populations with variable results. The purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which the SIMS and/or its associated variables/items are useful in detecting non-credible cognitive performance in patients with MS. Sixty-seven patients with MS (Mage = 48.64; 71.6% women; 83.6% White) were referred for ne...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - September 25, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Future Directions in Performance Validity Assessment to Optimize Detection of Invalid Neuropsychological Test Performance: Special Issue Introduction
(Source: Psychological Injury and Law)
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - September 22, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
The Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology Amnestic Disorders Scale (SIMS-AM) Is Insensitive to Cognitive Impairment While Accurately Identifying Invalid Cognitive Symptom Reporting
AbstractThe amnestic disorders scale of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS-AM) assesses invalid memory symptom reporting. Although the SIMS manual recommends a highly sensitive cut-score of SIMS-AM > 2 for identifying symptom magnification, higher SIMS-AM cut-scores may reduce the risk of misclassification in clinical samples with potentially genuine cognitive impairment. The current investigation validated the SIMS-AM against performance validity tests (PVTs) and a well-established index of symptom invalidity—the response bias scale (RBS) from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inven...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - August 12, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
An Eye Tracking Study on Feigned Schizophrenia
AbstractResearch on malingering detection has not yet taken full advantage of eye tracking technology. In particular, while several studies indicate that patients with schizophrenia behave notably differently from controls on specific oculomotor tasks, no study has yet investigated whether experimental participants instructed to feign could reproduce those behaviors, if coached to do so. Due to the automatic nature of eye movements, we anticipated that eye tracking analyses would help detect feigned schizophrenic problems. To test this hypothesis, we recorded the eye movements of 83 adult UK volunteers, and tested whether ...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - August 12, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Correction to: Marked Intraindividual Cognitive Variability in a Sample of Healthy Graduate Students
(Source: Psychological Injury and Law)
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - August 6, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
An Experimental Study of the Effects of Biased Responding on the Modified Rivermead Post-concussion Symptoms Questionnaire and Validity Indicators
This study explored the utility of the newly developed modified Rivermead Post-concussion Symptoms Questionnaire (RPQ), which embeds an SVI into the RPQ (mRPQ). Ninety-four participants completed the mRPQ; two existing SVIs (the Validity-10 [Val-10] and the Mild Brain Injury Atypical Symptoms [mBIAS] scale); two performance validity tests (the Test of Memory Malingering [TOMM] and Warrington ’s Memory Recognition Test [WMRT]); and, a post-experimental questionnaire. This study utilized a simulation design, with participants randomly allocated to one of two conditions: mTBI Simulator (MS,n = 47) or Biased mTBI Simulat...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - July 17, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Validity and Utility of the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M-FAST) on an Inpatient Epilepsy Monitoring Unit
AbstractAs overreporting of symptoms threatens the integrity and utility of the neuropsychological evaluation, symptom validity test (SVT) usage has become a standard of practice. The Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M-FAST) SVT has been validated in various forensic contexts, though its utility in specific medical settings remains under-explored. The current study examined the validity and diagnostic utility of the M-FAST among 123 inpatient veterans on a long-term video electroencephalogram (V-EEG) epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU). Select scores from the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology and the...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - July 3, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Assessment of Factitious Psychological Presentations (FPP): an Overlooked Response Style in Forensic Practice
AbstractForensic practitioners face continuing challenges in differentiating factitious presentations from malingering, which may be particularly salient in civil forensic cases. In striking contrast to malingering, very little research has studied factitious psychological presentations (FPPs). To address this virtual void, the Inventory of Self and Interpersonal Problems (I-SIP) was developed with two primary scales to address motivations: Factitious (FACT) and Antisocial Characteristics (ANT-C). The I-SIP was tested on 80 inpatients under both genuine and feigning (factitious or malingering) conditions. As predicted, fac...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - July 3, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Linguistic Interpretation of Acute Injury Characteristics That Define Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: an Exploratory Study of Native and Non-native English Speakers
In this study, we sought to explore if linguistic factors impact the diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). More specifically, we examined if the meaning of acute injury characteristics that determine whether an mTBI was sustained systematically differed across linguistically diverse populations. A total of 296 participants (68% female; 33% of South Asian descent; 42% second generation Canadian) were administered an mTBI Criterion Questionnaire where they were asked to define the diagnostic terms “dazed,” “disoriented,” and “confused.” These words were analyzed and placed into an appropriate validated...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - June 25, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Marked Intraindividual Cognitive Variability in a Sample of Healthy Graduate Students
Abstract
In this pilot study, intraindividual variability in neurocognitive test performance was examined in 24 healthy individuals with high levels of education and average full-scale IQ of 121.9 on a short neuropsychological battery across multiple cognitive domains. Marked variability was found across all domains. Intraindividual differences between the highest and lowestz-scores ranged from 2.05 to 6.92 (M = 3.89,SD = 1.25). Based on the definitions of abnormality proposed by Lezak, Wechsler and Heaton, 46% of our sample participants had at least one score that was more than 2 standard deviations below the p...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - June 24, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Relations Among Performance and Symptom Validity, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Burden in Postdeployment Veterans
AbstractThe purpose of this study was to evaluate relationships among the Word Memory Test (WMT), symptom validity test (SVT) indices of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), history of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom burden. Participants were postdeployment, predominantly male (88.5%) veterans (N = 417) who completed a neurocognition study that included the WMT and PAI. Correlations, chi-square analyses, and ANOVAs were used for analyses. Results of aim 1 examining relations among the two tests found that 20.4% produced invalid scores on the WMT (regardless of...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - June 22, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
The Call for Aid (Cry for Help) in Psychological Injury and Law: Reinterpretation, Mechanisms, and a Call for Research
AbstractThe cry for help is a contentious attribution to give to the motivation for symptom exaggeration or negative response bias in results that do not reach the bar for malingering on symptom validity tests in psychological injury forensic and related disability assessments. Young (Psychological Injury and Law, 12(3 –4), 225–237, 2019) had argued that the cry for help is a valid interpretive option in these circumstances, given that it refers to a call for attention for the most part. This paper advocates for replacing the term cry for help with a less contested one —a call for aid. This replacement term has mult...
Source: Psychological Injury and Law - June 5, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
