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Dissertation
Quantifying the multideterminate nature of the short category test-booklet format
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Drexel University
Sep 1996
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/00000496
Abstract
The Category Test is the single most sensitive measure of brain damage in the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery, and is often described as the benchmark measure of abstraction and concept formation ability. To date, however, very few authors have studied carefully the cognitive processes involved in successful Category Test performance. Using the Short Category Test: Booklet Format (SCT), an abbreviated version of the Category Test, the present author attempted to demonstrate that the Category Test is multiply determined, or sensitive to failures in several cognitive abilities. The study also represents the first attempt to quantify the effects of perseveration, loss of cognitive set, failure to inhibit automatic but inappropriate responding, and learning. The author analyzed neuropsychological protocols from a sample of 145 mixed neurological and psychiatric subjects. The multideterminate nature of the test was demonstrated by statistically significant relationships between the SCT and representative measures of fluid intellectual ability, abstraction, learning and memory, and maintaining and shifting cognitive set. As hypothesized, the SCT was significantly related to measures of fluid intellectual ability, abstraction/reasoning, learning and memory, perseverative behavior, and maintaining and shifting cognitive set. While previous studies have found similar patterns of correlation, all have over interpreted the strongest while under interpreting or even ignoring the rest. Several new indices of performance were constructed to quantify response level and construct level perseveration, loss of cognitive set, failure to inhibit automatic but inappropriate responding, and rule learning. Scores on the indices were compared to those on hypothetically related measures available in the data set. Results suggested that the indices of loss of cognitive set, learning, and failure to inhibit automatic but inappropriate responding were aptly conceptualized and worthy of further study. Response-level perseveration indices appeared to represent pathognomonic indicators of severely repetitive behavior. With the present data, the author could not unequivocally determine the phenomenon represented by the hypothesized construct-level perseveration indices. Follow up research into the performances of normal subjects on the new indices is necessary for better understanding of their meaning. Further, research with controlled patient groups may clarify the neuroanatomical substrates of these specific cognitive failures. In sum, the SCT is multiply determined, sensitive to failures in several cognitive abilities rather than only one (e.g., "abstraction"). Further, it appears feasible to quantify failures in several of these abilities, thereby providing valuable information regarding patients' cognition which is not available from the total error score alone.
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Details
- Title
- Quantifying the multideterminate nature of the short category test-booklet format
- Creators
- W. Thomas Bundick Jr.
- Contributors
- Mary Spiers (Advisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Number of pages
- xiii, 137 pages
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology [Historical]; College of Arts and Sciences; Drexel University
- Other Identifier
- 991014970321704721