Test of Memory Malingering | |
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Purpose | Discriminates between true memory impairment and malingering |
The Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) is a 50-question visual memory recognition test that discriminates between true memory impairment and malingering, with two learning trials and an optional retention trial following a delay. [1] It was first published in 1996 and is intended for testing individuals ages 16 and older.
The test has been shown to have high levels of sensitivity and specificity, and is largely insensitive to depression and anxiety. [2]
The TOMM has also been examined with pediatric samples. The research with this measure has supported the use of adult criteria for suboptimal effort with children as young as 5 years old with a variety of diagnoses including ADHD, autism, and fetal alcohol syndrome. [3]
Clairvoyance is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant.
Dyslexia, previously known as word blindness, is a learning disability that affects either reading or writing. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, "sounding out" words in the head, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one reads. Often these difficulties are first noticed at school. The difficulties are involuntary, and people with this disorder have a normal desire to learn. People with dyslexia have higher rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental language disorders, and difficulties with numbers.
An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardised tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term Intelligenzquotient, his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests at University of Breslau he advocated in a 1912 book.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias is insuperable for most people, but they can manage it, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills.
The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient, Michelle Smith, which used the discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make sweeping lurid claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations, which arose afterward throughout much of the United States, involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifices, pornography, and prostitution.
Malingering is the fabrication, feigning, or exaggeration of physical or psychological symptoms designed to achieve a desired outcome, such as relief from duty or work, avoiding arrest, receiving medication, and mitigating prison sentencing.
Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology focus on how injuries or illnesses of the brain affect cognitive and behavioral functions.
The Birmingham pub bombings were carried out on 21 November 1974, when bombs exploded in two public houses in Birmingham, England, killing 21 people and injuring 182 others.
Cognitive tests are assessments of the cognitive capabilities of humans and other animals. Tests administered to humans include various forms of IQ tests; those administered to animals include the mirror test and the T maze test. Such testing is used in psychology and psychometrics, as well as other fields studying human and animal intelligence.
Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), which have been more recently classified as functional seizures, are events resembling an epileptic seizure, but without the characteristic electrical discharges associated with epilepsy. PNES fall under the category of disorders known as functional neurological disorders (FND), also known as conversion disorders. These are typically treated by psychologists or psychiatrists. PNES has previously been called pseudoseizures, psychogenic seizures, and hysterical seizures, but these terms have fallen out of favor.
Recovered-memory therapy (RMT) is a catch-all term for a controversial and scientifically discredited form of psychotherapy that critics say utilizes one or more unproven therapeutic techniques to purportedly help patients recall previously forgotten memories. Proponents of recovered memory therapy claim, contrary to evidence, that traumatic memories can be buried in the subconscious and thereby affect current behavior, and that these memories can be recovered through the use of RMT techniques. RMT is not recommended by professional mental health associations. RMT can result in patients developing false memories of sexual abuse from their childhood and events such as alien abduction which had not actually occurred.
Cat intelligence is the capacity of the domesticated cat to solve problems and adapt to its environment. Research has shown that feline intelligence includes the ability to acquire new behavior that applies knowledge to new situations, communicating needs and desires within a social group and responding to training cues.
Human multitasking is the concept that one can split their attention on more than one task or activity at the same time, such as speaking on the phone while driving a car.
Exaggeration is the representation of something as more extreme or dramatic than it is, intentionally or unintentionally. It can be a rhetorical device or figure of speech, used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression.
United States v. Binion, 132 F. App'x 89, is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit applied two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, United States v. Booker and United States v. Fanfan, in upholding the sentencing decision by the trial court, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Eidetic memory, also known as photographic memory and total recall, is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only once and without using a mnemonic device.
Because of the substantial benefits available to individuals with a confirmed PTSD diagnosis, which causes occupational impairment, the distinct possibility of false diagnoses exist, some of which are due to malingering of PTSD. Malingering of PTSD consists of one feigning the disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that may develop after an individual experiences a traumatic event. In the United States, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs each offer disability compensation programs that provide benefits for qualified individuals with mental disorders, including PTSD. Malingering can lead to a decline in research and subsequent treatment for PTSD as it interferes with true studies. Insurance fraud may also come about through malingering, which hurts the economy.
The Purdue Pegboard Test is a psychomotor test of manual dexterity and bimanual coordination. The test involves two different abilities: gross movements of arms, hands, and fingers, and fine motor extremity, also called "fingerprint" dexterity. Poor Pegboard performance is a sign of deficits in complex, visually guided, or coordinated movements that are likely mediated by circuits involving the basal ganglia.
The Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test (GOAT) is a measure of attention and orientation, especially to see if a patient has recovered from post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) after a traumatic brain injury. This was the first measure created to test post-traumatic amnesia, and is still the most widely used test. The test was created by Harvey S. Levin and colleagues (1979), and features ten questions that assess temporal and spatial orientation, biographical recall, and memory. Points are awarded for responses to each question, with a 100 points possible. A score greater than 78 for three consecutive days is considered the threshold for emergence from post-traumatic amnesia. This test is intended for patients aged 15 years or older. Younger patients are given a modified version of the test, known as the Children's Orientation and Attention Test (COAT).
Sex differences in human intelligence have long been a topic of debate among researchers and scholars. It is now recognized that there are no significant sex differences in general intelligence, though particular subtypes of intelligence vary somewhat between sexes.