Emotional variables and neuropsychological test performance

Abstract

Although previous studies have demonstrated the general success of neuropsychological tests in discriminating brain-impaired patients from normals and patients with psychiatric disorders, limited attention has addressed the more specific effects of emotional disturbance on test performance. This study investigated MMPI correlates of Halstead-Reitan test (HRB) performance in a sample of 105 neuropsychological referrals (predominantly psychiatric) who had negative neurologic findings. The results indicated significant effects for age and education on many of the tests, with smaller but statistically significant relationships between the quality of HRB test performance and MMPI scores.