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The impact of visual memory impairment on Victoria Symptom Validity Test performance: A known-groups analysis
Jane K Stocks1,2, Allison N Shields1,3, Adam B DeBoer1,4
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.
Objective:
We assessed the effect of visual learning and recall impairment on Victoria Symptom Validity Test (VSVT) accuracy and response latency for Easy, Difficult, and Total Items.
Method:
A sample of 163 adult patients administered the VSVT and Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised were classified as valid (114/163) or invalid (49/163) groups via independent criterion performance validity tests (PVTs). Classification accuracies for all VSVT indices were examined for the overall sample, and separately for subgroups based on visual memory functioning.
Results:
In the overall sample, all indices produced acceptable classification accuracy (areas under the curve [AUCs] ≥ 0.79). When stratified by visual learning/recall impairment, accuracy indices yielded acceptable classification for both the unimpaired (AUCs ≥0.79) and impaired subsamples (AUCs ≥0.75). Latency indices had acceptable classification accuracy for the unimpaired subsample (AUCs ≥0.74), but accuracy and sensitivity dropped for the impaired sample (AUCs ≥0.67).
Conclusions:
VSVT accuracy and response latency yielded acceptable classification accuracies in the overall sample, and this effect was maintained in those with and without visual learning/recall impairment for the accuracy indices. Findings indicate that the VSVT is a psychometrically robust PVT with largely invariant cut-scores, even in the presence of bona fide visual learning/recall impairment.
