Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised Digit Research Articles

Neuropsychological Importance of Subcortical White Matter Hyperintensity

Subcortical hyperintensity on magnetic resonance imaging is a common incidental finding in healthy elderly subjects. The relationship of such changes to cognitive functioning remains unclear, however, because only a small number of studies have examined this issue with conflicting results. We therefore assessed 66 healthy adult volunteers (mean [+/- SD] age, 61.8 +/- 15.8 years) with magnetic resonance imaging scans rated for subcortical hyperintensity, and with two neuropsychological instruments selected a priori on the basis of previous reports in the literature. Findings were highly significant for both the Benton Facial Recognition Test and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised Digit Symbol. However, in both cases, the majority of variance was accounted for by age and educational level. Effects of subcortical hyperintensity were not significant. We conclude that subcortical hyperintensity in healthy adults does not relate to cognitive functioning, at least with these two instruments.

Factor structure of Benton's tests of visual retention, visual construction, and visual form discrimination

The standard drawing and multiple-choice versions of the Benton Visual Retention Test (BVRT), the Visual Form Discrimination Test (VFDT), the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT), and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised Digit Span subtest were administered to a mixed sample of 97 psychiatric, neurologic, and control subjects. Factor analysis of the Benton test battery measures alone showed that the standard and multiple-choice BVRT protocols performed very similarly. Scoring of the standard BVRT for errors and number of correct items was shown to be statistically redundant for this sample. Possible simplification of standard BVRT scoring was suggested. Copying and immediate visual-memory skills emerged as separable factors on the standard BVRT. When the AVLT and Digit Span measures were factor analyzed with the Benton lest battery measures, however, simple factorial structure emerged only for the AVLT measures (one factor) and the BVRT copying measures that were grouped with the VFDT. A verbal mediation component was thought to be associated with the multifactorial BVRT and multiple-choice BVRT results in this analysis.