A comparison of high performance on remote vs. in-person self- administered neuropsychological measures: the Mobile...

To examine the role of administration setting (remote vs. in-person) on performance on four self-administered, smartphone-based neuropsychological measures delivered via the Mobile Toolbox (MTB) and MyCog Mobile (MCM) platforms.

Participants self-administered four cognitive tasks (i.e. Executive Function, Face Memory, Picture Memory, and Working Memory) on a smartphone either in the lab or remotely (in-person N = 292, remote N = 701). Robust methods were used to examine performance differences across in-person and remote samples while controlling for covariates.

Remote testing was associated with higher Picture Memory Trial 1 scores (β = 1.114, p = 0.002) and lower Face Memory First Letter scores (β = -3.194, p < 0.001); the latter effect was moderated by education and version. Picture Memory Trial 2 showed only an indirect effect of setting through an interaction with age (β = 0.048, p < 0.001). No setting effects were found for Executive Function or Working Memory tasks. All observed setting effect sizes were small (partial η²≤.014). Perfect scores were more common remotely on memory tasks; however, sparse perfect scores for Trial 1 in the in-person group and ceiling effects on Trial 2 limit interpretation.

Performance on self-administered smartphone tasks was largely comparable across settings, with only small, subtest-specific differences in performance on memory tasks. These results support remote self-administration for research use while highlighting the need for design strategies that preserve score validity across settings.