The use of the rey memory test to assess malingering in criminal defendants

Abstract

An attempt was made to evaluate the utility of the Rey Memory Test (Rey, 1964) to assess malingering in criminal defendants referred for inpatient forensic evaluation. The performance of 14 diagnosed malingerers was compared to a control group of 14 forensic inpatients who had been acquitted by reason of insanity. Malingerers performed significantly less well on the test than did controls. A previously suggested cut-off score of 9 items remembered (Lezak, 1983) resulted in correct classification of 86% of the subjects as either malingering or not malingering. However, a cut-off of 3 rows remembered correctly was found to be inappropriate because 57% of the controls would have been labeled incorrectly as malingerers.