RELIABILITY AND CONSTRUCT-VALIDITY OF THE PAIRED-ASSOCIATE RECOGNITION TEST - A TEST OF DECLARATIVE MEMORY USING WISCONSIN CARD SORTING STIMULI

The Paired-Associate Recognition Test (PART) was developed to test dec larative memory using Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) stimuli, for use in physiologic neuroimaging studies of memory and executive functi on in schizophrenia. PART was administered to 55 healthy adults (30 ma le, 25 female) to establish reliability and construct validity. Reliab ility results indicate that PART performance was stable across trials and internally consistent. Convergent validity was confirmed by signif icant correlations between PART and standard measures of visual recall , and by PART loading on a memory factor. Divergent validity was estab lished through low correlations between PART and WCST, and by a loadin g of WCST on a separate factor. Overall results indicate that PART can be administered reliably and that it requires declarative memory proc esses.