Effort Indicators within the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II)

This study determined whether performance patterns on the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) could differentiate participants with traumatic brain injury (TBI) showing adequate effort from those with mild TBI exhibiting poor effort using a case-control design. The TBI group consisted of 124 persons with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). The poor effort group consisted of 77 persons with mild head injury who were involved in litigation (LG) and failed at least one stand-alone symptom validity measure (SVT) and also either a second SVT or an effort indicator embedded within a standard clinical test. A total of 18 CVLT-II variables were investigated using Bayesian model averaging (BMA) for logistic regression to determine which variables best differentiated the groups. The CVLT-II variables having the most support were Long-Delay Free Recall, Total Recognition Discriminability (d'), and Total Recall Discriminability.