Premium
Is the emotional Stroop paradigm sensitive to malingering? A between‐groups study with professional actors and actual trauma survivors
Author(s) -
Buckley Todd C.,
Galovski Tara,
Blanchard Edward B.,
Hickling Edward J.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1023/a:1022063412056
Subject(s) - malingering , stroop effect , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , audiology , clinical psychology , psychiatry , cognitive psychology , medicine , cognition
Six professional actors, trained by psychologists and acting coaches to feign PTSD, were covertly enrolled into a treatment outcome study for PTSD with the aim of investigating malingering. During pretreatment assessment, individuals completed an emotional Stroop task. Vocal response latencies to different classes of stimuli were examined for sensitivity to malingering. Actor response latencies were compared to those of 6 nonlitigant PTSD patients and 6 nonanxiety controls. The actor/dissimulation group was able to feign an overall slowing of response latency across stimulus types, similar to the PTSD group. However, they were unable to modulate response latency as a function of stimulus content, a pattern that characterized the PTSD group. The use of information‐processing paradigms to detect dissimulation is discussed.