Practice effect associated with the serial administration of the switch task and its implications in the assessment of sports-related concussion

ABSTRACT

In the context of return to play assessment following a sports concussion, athletes may have to complete a cognitive task several times within days. The current longitudinal study aimed to examine the practice effect associated with the serial administration of the switch task. We hypothesized that the practice effect would be the greatest between the first and second assessments and that a plateau would be obtained by the third assessment. Forty healthy university students completed the switch task four times at an interval of 48-hour, with half of them doing version A on all visits (AA group), while the others alternated between A and B every other assessment (AB group). For response accuracy, performance generally improved from V1 to V2, and from V2 to V3 (ps ≤.001), irrespective of group. For reaction time, a significant interaction of Visit × Group was observed. Specifically, AA group performance improved from V1 to V2, and from V2 to V3, while the AB group only improved from V2 to V3 (ps ≤.01). Performance improved over the first three assessments and stabilized with no statistically significant change between the third and fourth testing sessions. Although the use of an alternative version has helped reduce the practice effect, it did not help in eliminating it. The current results highlight the need for further examination of the practice effect and its implication in clinical decision-making. Clinicians working in the sports concussion field must take the practice effect into account when they use the switch task for serial testing.

KEYWORDS:

• Learning effect
• cognitive testing
• injury management
• brain injury

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Alizée Znaty, Alexandra Germain, Maria Lazanis, Annik Charest-Rettig, Alejandra Martinez, Georges Hallak, and Najd Ajji for their previous help in recruiting and evaluating several participants, as well as for their help in data entry.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR MOP-102608) to Dave Ellemberg.