Abstract
Sanchez-Cubillo et al. (2009) conducted a study in which 41 healthy older subjects performed a battery of neuropsychological tests, including the Trail Making Test (TMT), the Digit Symbol subtest (WAIS-III), the Digits Forward and Backward subtests (WAIS-III), a Finger Tapping Test, a Stroop Test, and a task-switching paradigm akin to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (cf. Strauss, Sherman, and Spreen, 2006). The results of correlation and regression analyses suggested that TMTA requires mainly visuo-perceptual abilities, TMTB primarily reflects working memory and task-switching abilities, while the TMTB2A difference score provides a relatively pure indicator of task-switching abilities. The use of the TMTB2A difference score should help clinicians to interpret abnormal performance in terms of a failure of this specific cognitive mechanism. Unfortunately, there is the danger that the reliability of difference scores will be unacceptably low because the reliability of a difference score is simply a function of the average reliability of its two components and of the correlation between them (Crawford, Sutherland, and Garthwaite, 2008). Under the circumstance of a common standard deviation of the two components used to form the difference, the formula for the reliability of a difference score, r(B2A), is:
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