We administered the b Test, a new measure to identify malingering requiring
recognition of overlearned information, to 34 suspected malingerers and to
161 subjects in various clinical groups (moderate to severe head injury, e
lderly depressed learning disability, schizophrenia, right and left CVA, an
d elderly normals). Comparisons of groups revealed more commission and omis
sion errors in the suspected mn(malingerers relative to all groups except t
he right stroke patients. In addition, suspected malingerers rook longer lo
complete the task than all groups except right and left stroke patients an
d normal elderly. A cutoff of >2 commission errors produced a sensitivity o
f 76.5% mid specificity for all comparison groups combined of 82.6%. Lower
sensitivity rates were documented for omissions (58.8 using cutoff of >40)
and time (57.6% using cutoff of >12 minutes), brit specificity remained hig
h at 85.1% and 83.9%, respectively. Thus, the b Test shows considerable pot
ential as a malingering detection tool. (C) 2000 National Academy of Neurop
sychology. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.