title: Practice effect and test-retest reliability of attentional and executive tests in middle-aged to elderly subjects.
abstract: There is a lack of data about the practice effect and test-retest reliability (TRR) on many attentional and executive tests in neuropsychology. In this study, 37 subjects aged 52 to 80 were tested three times with an inter-assessment interval of 14 days. The battery included the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, the Stroop interference test, the Letter-Number Sequencing test, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III), the Ruff 2 and 7 Selective Attention Test, the Tower of London, the Verbal Fluency test, and simple, choice, and sequential reaction time tests. The results showed that tasks were generally subject to a practice effect, except for those with alternate forms. In all tests, there were a number of scores demonstrating good TRR, but others, although largely used in clinical practice, failed to reach acceptable TRR standards. Usually, time derived scores were associated with the best TRR.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Université du Québec à Montréal, Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lemay
authors.forename: Marc-André
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Bédard
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rouleau
authors.forename: Pierre-Luc Gilbert
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Tremblay
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence / Q000502:physiology; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology