Preface.Chapter 1: Introduction.Organization of the Handbook.Role of the Clinician.Patterns of Test Usage in Clinical Assessment.Evaluating Psychological Tests.Validity in Clinical Practice.Clinical Judgment.Phases in Clinical Assessment.Recommended Reading.Chapter 2: Context of Clinical Assessment.Types of Referral Settings.Ethical Practice of Assessment.Test Bias and Use with Minority Groups.Selecting Psychological Tests.Computer-Assisted Assessment.Recommended Reading.Chapter 3: The Assessment Interview.History and Development.Issues Related to Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.The Assessment Interview and Case History.Mental Status Examination.Interpreting Interview Data.Structured Interviews.Recommended Reading.Chapter 4: Behavioral Assessment.History and Development.Issues Related to Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.Strategies of Behavioral Assessment.Recommended Reading.Chapter 5: Wechsler Intelligence Scales.Testing of Intelligence: Pro and Con.History and Development.Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.Meaning of IQ Scores.Cautions and Guidelines in Administration.WAIS-III /WISC-III Successive Level Interpretation Procedure.Wechsler Subtests.Assessing Brain Damage.Assessing Additional Special Populations.Short Forms.Recommended Reading.Chapter 6: Wechsler Memory Scales.History and Development.Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.Interpretation Procedure.Recommended Reading.Chapter 7: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.History and Development.Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.Administration.Interpretation Procedure.Computerized Interpretation.Validity Scales.Clinical Scales.Two-Point Codes.MMPI-2 Content Scales.MMPI-A Content Scales.Harris-Lingoes and Si Subscales.Critical Items.MMPI-2 and MMPI-A Supplementary Scales.Recommended Reading.Chapter 8: Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory.History and Development.Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.Interpretation Procedure.Modifying Indices (Validity Scales).Clinical Personality Patterns.Severe Personality Pathology.Clinical Syndromes.Severe Syndromes.Recommended Reading.Chapter 9: California Psychological Inventory.History and Development.Comparison with the MMPI.Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.Interpretation Procedures.Vector Scale Interpretation.Individual Scales.Special Purpose Scales.Configural Interpretation.Recommended Reading.Chapter 10: Rorschach.History and Development.Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.Approaching Consensus on Rorschach Validity.Administration.Scoring.Structural Summary.Interpretation.Recommended Reading.Chapter 11: Thematic Apperception Test.History and Development.Theoretical Perspectives.Reliability and Validity.Assets and Limitations.Administration.Typical Themes Elicited.Scoring Procedures.Interpretation.Recommended Reading.Chapter 12: Screening and Assessing for Neuropsychological Impairment.History and Development.Interviewing for Brain Impairment.Tests for Screening and Assessing for Neuropsychological Impairment.Tests of Visuoconstructive Abilities.Mental Activities (Attention and Speed of Information Processing).Memory and Learning.Verbal Functions and Academic Skills.Tests of Motor Ability.Executive Functions.Emotional Status and Level of Adjustment.Recommended Reading.Chapter 13: Brief Instruments for Treatment Planning, Monitoring, and Outcome Assessment.Selecting Brief Instruments.Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R) and Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI).The Beck Depression Inventory.State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).Recommended Reading.Chapter 14: Psychological Assessment and Treatment Planning.Development and Approaches to Treatment Planning.A Systematic Approach to Treatment Selection.Functional Impairment.Social Support.Problem Complexity/Chronicity.Coping Style.Resistance.Subjective Distress.Problem-Solving Phase.Recommended Reading.Chapter 15: Psychological Report.General Guidelines.Format for a Psychological Report.Sample Reports.Recommended Reading.Appendix A: Test Publishers/Distributors.Appendix B: Percentile Rankings for Wechsler Deviation IQS.Appendix C: Conversion Formulas and Difference Scores for Determining Magnitude (.05 Level) of Fluctuations for Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (3rd ed. WAIS-III) Additional Groupings.Appendix D: Conversion Formulas and Difference Scores for Determining Magnitude (.05 Level) of Fluctuations for Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (3rd ed. WISC-III) Factor Scores and Additional Groupings.Appendix E: Directions for Completing Appendix E: Worksheet for Determining Magnitude of WISC-III Subtest Fluctuations.Appendix F: Guidelines for Hypothesizing Subtest Strengths and Weaknesses.Appendix G: Directions for Hand Scoring the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) Validity and Clinical Scales.Appendix H: Feedback Statements for the MMPI-2 Clinical Scales.Appendix I: Descriptive Statistics for Nonpatient Adults (N = 600).Appendix J: Maturational Guidelines for Bender Gestalt Designs.Appendix K: Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test Scoring Sheet.Appendix L: Norms for the Standard Administration of the RAVLT.WISC-IV Supplement.References.Author Index.Subject Index.

Handbook of psychological assessment

The organization and possible functions of basal forebrain and pontine cholinergic systems are reviewed. Whereas the basal forebrain cholinergic neuronal projections likely subserve a common electrophysiological function, e.g. to boost signal-to-noise ratios in cortical target areas, this function has different effects on psychological processes dependent upon the neural network operations within these various cortical domains. Evidence is presented that (a) the nucleus basalis-neocortical cholinergic system contributes greatly to visual attentional function, but not to mnemonic processes per se; (b) the septohippocampal projection is involved in the modulation of short-term spatial (working) memory processes, perhaps by prolonging the neural representation of external stimuli within the hippocampus; and (c) the diagonal band-cingulate cortex cholinergic projection impacts on the ability to utilize response rules through conditional discrimination. We also suggest that nucleus basalis-amygdala cholinergic projections have a role in the retention of affective conditioning while brainstem cholinergic projections to the thalamus and midbrain dopamine neurons affect basic arousal processes (e.g. sleep-wake cycle) and behavioral activation, respectively. The possibilities and limitations of therapeutic interventions with procholinergic drugs in patients with Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders in which basal forebrain cholinergic neurons degenerate are also discussed.

Central cholinergic systems and cognition

The authors examined the question of whether a decrease in the efficiency of inhibitory processing with aging is a general phenomenon. Thirty elderly and 32 young adults performed a series of tasks from which the authors could extract measures of inhibitory function. The tasks and task components included response compatibility, negative priming, stopping, spatial precuing, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). Only limited evidence for age-related differences in inhibitory function was obtained. Old adults had more difficulty than young adults in stopping an overt response and adopting new rules in a categorization task. However, elderly and young adults produced equivalent negative priming effects, response compatibility effects, spatial precuing effects, and self-reported cognitive failures. The findings are discussed in terms of the relationship between aging, inhibitory processes, and neuroanatomical and physiological function.

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Aging and Inhibition: Beyond a Unitary View of Inhibitory Processing in Attention

Cognitive functions of cortical acetylcholine: toward a unifying hypothesis

Alzheimer's disease is a dementing disorder of unknown cause in which there is degeneration of neuronal subpopulations in the central nervous system. In postmortem studies, we found widespread axonal degeneration in the optic nerves of 8 of 10 patients with Alzheimer's disease. The retinas of four of the patients were also examined histologically, and three had a reduction in the number of ganglion cells and in the thickness of the nerve-fiber layer. There was no retinal neurofibrillary degeneration or amyloid angiopathy, which are typically seen in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. The changes we observed in the patients with Alzheimer's disease were clearly distinguishable from the findings in 10 age-matched controls and represent a sensory-system degeneration that occurs in Alzheimer's disease. Study of the retina in patients with this disease may be helpful diagnostically, and isolation of the affected ganglion cells may facilitate molecular analysis of the disorder.

Optic-Nerve Degeneration in Alzheimer's Disease

• Visual contrast sensitivity to sinusoidal gratings of five spatial frequencies was measured in 15 patients with Alzheimer's disease and in eight control subjects. Contrast sensitivity thresholds were elevated at all frequencies in 14 patients compared with control subjects. The 15th patient was unique: she had an impairment in object and face recognition so severe that she could not recognize her husband visually. Her sensitivity to low and intermediate frequencies was markedly reduced in relation to that of other patients, whereas her sensitivity to the highest frequency tested equaled theirs. These observations emphasize the importance of low spatial frequency information for visual object and face recognition.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/NEUR/articlepdf/584325/archneur_42_7_015.pdf

Spatial Vision in Alzheimer's Disease: General Findings and a Case Report

It has been proposed that aging selectively affects cognitive processes that are effortful rather than automatic and that active, memory-driven attentional selectivity is impaired in old adults. The present study evaluated attentional selectivity in two groups of healthy adults: a younger group with mean age 19.4 years and an older group with mean age 63.6 years. A visual simple reaction time task was used in which a warning cue appearing at the beginning of each trial indicated the probable location of the target signal. Response times of both groups were shortest when the stimulus appeared at the expected location and longest when it appeared at the unexpected location; responses of both groups were also faster on trials with a 3-s warning interval compared with a 2-s warning interval. These effects of spatial and temporal expectancy were as substantial in older adults as in younger adults. Reasons for the difference between these findings and earlier results are discussed.

Mary Jo Nissen

Papers

Spatial Vision in Alzheimer's Disease: General Findings and a Case Report

Effectiveness of attentional cueing in older and younger adults.

Selective attention in Alzheimer's disease: Characterizing cognitive subgroups of patients

Assessing treatment effects: A neuropsychological battery.

Selective attention in Alzheimer's disease: CSF correlates of behavioral impairments.