Comparability of developmental cognitive assessments between standard and computer testing methods.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Comparative psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Concerns exist regarding the validity of computer-based testing for assessing cognitive development in young subjects.
• Limited research has compared performance from computerized methods to traditional testing approaches.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if computerized testing yields different performance compared to established norms in infant monkeys (Macaca nemestrina).
• To assess the comparability of cognitive task performance between computerized and standard testing environments.

Main Methods:

• Infant monkeys (Macaca nemestrina) were tested on four common cognitive tasks using a computerized testing environment.
• Performance was compared against established norms and between testing environments.

Main Results:

• Infants demonstrated comparable performance on simple discrimination, reversal learning, and delayed nonmatch to sample rule learning tasks.
• A notable difficulty was observed in the computer testing environment for tasks requiring response strategy formation.

Conclusions:

• Computer-based testing shows limitations for infant cognitive assessments, particularly for tasks involving strategy development.
• Performance on several standard cognitive tasks is comparable between computerized and traditional testing environments for infant monkeys.