RESUMEN
INTRODUCTION: To allow continued administration of neuropsychological evaluations remotely during the pandemic, tests from the not-for-profit platform, TestMyBrain.org (TMB), were used to develop the TMB Digital Neuropsychology Toolkit (DNT). This study details the psychometric characteristics of the DNT, as well as the infrastructure and development of the DNT. METHOD: The DNT was primarily distributed for clinical use, with (72.8%) of individuals requesting access for clinical purposes. To assess reliability and validity of the DNT, anonymous data from DNT test administrations were analyzed and compared to a large, non-clinical normative sample from TMB. RESULTS: DNT test scores showed acceptable to very good split-half reliability (.68-.99). Factor analysis revealed three latent factors, corresponding to processing speed, working memory, and a broader general cognitive ability factor that included perceptual reasoning and episodic memory. Average test scores were slightly poorer for the DNT sample than for the TMB comparison sample, as expected given the clinical use of the DNT. CONCLUSIONS: Initial estimates of reliability and validity of DNT tests support their use as digital measures of neuropsychological functioning. Tests within cognitive domains correlated highly with each other and demonstrated good reliability and validity. Future work will seek to validate DNT tests in specific clinical populations and determine best practices for using DNT outcome measures to assess engagement and psychological symptomatology.
Asunto(s)
Trastornos del Conocimiento , Neuropsicología , Humanos , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Psicometría , Reproducibilidad de los ResultadosRESUMEN
Mobile- and web-based psychological research are a valuable addition to the set of tools available for scientific study, reducing logistical barriers for research participation and allowing the recruitment of larger and more diverse participant groups. However, this comes at the cost of reduced control over the technology used by participants, which can introduce new sources of variability into study results. In this study, we examined differences in measured performance on timed and untimed cognitive tests between users of common digital devices in 59,587 (Study 1) and 3818 (Study 2) visitors to TestMyBrain.org , a web-based cognitive testing platform. Controlling for age, gender, educational background, and cognitive performance on an untimed vocabulary test, users of mobile devices, particularly Android smartphones, showed significantly slower performance on tests of reaction time than users of laptop and desktop computers, suggesting that differences in device latency affect measured reaction times. Users of devices that differ in user interface (e.g. screen size, mouse vs. touchscreen) also show significant differences (p < 0.001) in measured performance on tests requiring fast reactions or fine motor movements. By quantifying the contribution of device differences to measured cognitive performance in an online setting, we hope to improve the accuracy of mobile- and web-based cognitive assessments, allowing these methods to be used more effectively.