A Study of the TOMM and DCT in Chinese-Speaking Immigrants with Limited English Proficiency in the United States

Abstract

The accuracy of performance validity tests (PVTs) with culturally diverse populations has increasingly been questioned. High false positive rates have been found in some PVTs in culturally and linguistically diverse individuals within the U.S. and internationally. No study to date has investigated the accuracy of PVTs with Chinese-speaking immigrants (CSI) in the U.S. The current study aimed to evaluate two PVTs, the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) and Dot Counting Test (DCT), to determine their accuracy in a community sample of CSI with limited English proficiency. These two measures were used in a simulation design, contrasting 52 participants who were instructed to respond honestly to 22 participants instructed to feign incompetency to stand trial. Results demonstrated the scores of TOMM Trial 1 and Trial 2 were effective in classifying honest responders from simulators, whereas the DCT E-score did not differentiate the groups better than chance. However, false positive rates for the TOMM Trial 1, Trial 2, and the DCT E-score were relatively low. Only one honest responder (1.9%) was classified as exerting insufficient effort in TOMM Trial 1 and DCT E-score, and the TOMM Trial 2 did not misclassify any honest responders. Implications and cautionary statements are provided and discussed.

Keywords:

• Classification accuracy
• cognitive effort
• cross-cultural validity
• feigning
• malingering

Acknowledgment

The current study was as part of the first author’s master’s thesis, and thus we want to acknowledge Professor Andrew Rasmussen for his comments on the thesis. Parts of the manuscript have been previously presented at the American Psychology-Law Society conference. The authors would like to acknowledge the participants in the current study, without whom the research could not have been accomplished. Additionally, the authors are extremely grateful for the assistance of Yu-Kang Chen, Ph.D. and Joy Luangphaxay, LMSW, along with the staff of the Hamilton-Madison House, for their assistance in facilitating this research.

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Notes

1 Mandarin is the official spoken language in Mainland China and Taiwan, and one of the official spoken languages in Hong Kong. There are also other Chinese dialects spoken within these three regions. For example, Cantonese is the primary spoken Chinese dialect in Hong Kong. Written characters are referred to simply as “Chinese” rather than Mandarin.