The Bivalent Shape Task in a Dutch primary school population: A pilot study for a first psychometric assessment

Area of Science:

• Neuropsychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• The Bivalent Shape Task (BST) is designed to measure the ability to inhibit irrelevant information.
• Assessing cognitive functions like interference suppression is crucial for understanding child development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the psychometric properties of the BST in children aged 5-11.
• To determine the utility of multilevel analysis for BST data in this age group.

Main Methods:

• The BST was administered to 38 primary school children in the Netherlands.
• Data collection was cut short due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
• Multilevel analysis was employed to analyze reaction time data.

Main Results:

• Significant effects of age, time, task levels, and correct answers were observed on reaction time.
• Interactions between these factors were also significant.
• The multilevel model successfully incorporated random effects.

Conclusions:

• The BST appears to be a valuable tool for assessing interference suppression in children aged 5-11.
• Multilevel analysis is a suitable method for analyzing BST data.
• Further psychometric research is recommended to explore reliability and validity aspects more thoroughly.