Behavioral Measures of Neurotoxicity (1990) / Chapter Skim
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Neurobehavioral Tests: Problems, Potential, and Prospects
Neurobehavioral Tests: Problems, Potential, and Prospects
Pages 86-98
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From page 86... ...
There are considered to be more subtle behavioral effects of less severe acute exposure or of sustained exposure to lower levels of the relevant substances. The assessment of behavioral effects is considered to be the primary approach to the systematic monitoring of neurotoxic exposure, and where mass screening is considered for large populations at risk, it may be the only practicable approach, at least for initial selection.
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From page 87... ...
in a computer-based form developed by the Institute of Occupational Health at the University of Milan. The battery is much as in its original form except that the Santa Ana Rotation Test of the original battery has, for pragmatic reasons, been replaced by a test which assesses rather different cognitive functions, and the modality of the Digit Span task has been changed in a way that is known to alter the cognitive functions involved (Beaumont, 1985~.
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From page 88... ...
At this level of validity, if we are trying to identify pathological effects which are present in 50 percent of those tested, the best that the test can theoretically achieve is 77 percent correct classification of the test subjects. In practice, a much more unfavorable base-rate of the condition is likely to apply in the test population.
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From page 89... ...
This study will use the Clinical Interview Schedule together with the Hogstedt Symptom Questionnaire, Stress and Arousal Checklist, Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, and Prospective Memory Test, in addition to the NES tests. At present only preliminary pilot data are available.
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From page 90... ...
It is naturally important, indeed essential, that appropriate local norms be available. However, given that there are inevitably differences among cultures in education, cognitive processes, cultural experience, exposure to testing and test materials, and even (some believe)
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From page 91... ...
THE ADEQUACY OF CURRENT TESTS The problems inherent in current assessment batteries appear to be twofold. First, the tests employed have been selected on the basis of their previous use in experimental studies of the effects of exposure to neurotoxins.
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From page 92... ...
This implies that if screening is a goal of the research (or if significant improvements are to be made in the sensitivity of the tests for detecting differences between criterion groups) , then the whole basis of the assessments currently employed needs to be reexamined.
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From page 93... ...
Cognitive Componential Models Functional models, increasingly explicit in the cognitive domain, might allow an assessment system to possess an internal representation of the function that is under examination. One of the fruits of the growth of cognitive information-processing approaches into the dominant zeitgeist of contemporary psychology has been the production of explicit functional models.
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From page 94... ...
The parallels become more clear if the elements of each procedure are considered. Me objectives of the expert system are the test items of the conventional test; the values, the responses; the questions and user interface are equivalent to the administration procedures; the rules are represented in the scoring norms; the inference engine is matched by the psychometric model being employecl.
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From page 95... ...
A variety of procedures will, of course, also be defined which permit data to be established pertinent to the rule-based inferences that are to be made. These procedures may be prior values held within the system, they may be the responses to questions put to the test subject or to the test examiner, or they may be the results of ancillary procedures (including independent subprocedures defined within a procedural programming environment)
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From page 96... ...
Third, these processes should be formulated in terms of a cognitive componential mode! of the relevant functions, in a sufficiently coherent form to allow decomposition of the observed performance and analysis of the functional status of the subject.
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From page 97... ...
, it would be possible to establish me emus Won co -- e ~cho^g ~ an individual worker Aim repave ease and to dramadcaDy improve our understanding of the relevant processes in general. Even if legislation to introduce this is unattainabl~ the ~boduchon of such a system by ~ namer of major employers Could at least make a ~orth~hUe contribution.
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