Abstract
Objectives: To investigate the utility of a computerised multi-modal malingering battery, incorporating performance and interview-based measures in the detection of malingered cognitive symptoms in traumatic brain injury. To gain qualitative feedback from a simulating malingering group on strategies they used to feign tests. Method: A 3-group standard simulation quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the effectiveness of a multi-modal malingering battery which included the Cognitive Dysfunction Questionnaire (Coxell, 2004, unpublished questionnaire), and tasks based on the Line Bisection Test (Schenkenberg, Bradford & Ajax, 1980) and the pop-out paradigm (Treisman & Souther, 1985). The discriminatory power of the battery was compared to a standardised measure of malingering, the Test of Memory Malingering (Tombaugh, 1997). The performances of individuals with traumatic brain injury (N = 30) were compared with a simulating malingering group instructed to feign head injury (N = 30) and a healthy control group (N = 30). Results: The malingering battery discriminated powerfully between the malingering and traumatic brain injury groups. It yielded good specificity and adequate specificity. Specifically, malingerers were found to make significantly more errors than the other two groups. Reaction time latencies may lack utility in distinguishing malingerers of traumatic brain injury. Qualitative feedback illustrated the variety of strategies utilised by simulating malingerers. Conclusion: The simulating malingerer group performed poorly on simple cognitive tasks during a compensation seeking scenario. The study supports the use of multi-modal malingering batteries as opposed to individual malingering tests to ensure increased classification accuracy and sensitivity to heterogeneous strategies used by malingerers.