Detecting the faking of amnesia: Performance differences between simulators and patients with memory impairment

Abstract

This study attempted to establish criteria for distinguishing patients with genuine memory problems from those who are attempting to simulate amnesia. The performance of simulators and genuine amnesics was compared under distraction conditions in which subjects had to count backwards between presentation and recall, and under no-distraction conditions in which the retention interval was unfilled. Genuine amnesics performed significantly worse than controls under distraction conditions, but did not perform significantly worse than controls under no-distraction conditions. However, those attempting to fake amnesia performed significantly worse than controls under no-distraction as well as under distraction conditions. They also exaggerated the memory deficit overall relative to genuine amnesics. It is suggested that these two criteria might be used successfully in clinical settings to assist in the detection of simulators.