Journal of Clinical Psychology · 1997 · 79 citations · 0 references
Social SciencesPsychiatryPsychologyCognitive PsychologyMemoryPsychometricsAuditory MemoryMemory AssessmentAuditory Short-term MemoryAuditory Verbal Short-term MemoryCovarianceObserved VariablesStructural EquationsVerbal Learning Tests
The Auditory Verbal Learning Test is widely used in research and clinical practice, yet its structural properties have been little studied. We examined a German version of the AVLT, the VLMT, in 232 psychiatric and 872 epileptic patients, modeling its observed variables with a LISREL framework linking short‑term and long‑term memory latent factors and estimating the model in both samples. The LISREL model fit both samples excellently, with no significant discrepancies between estimated and observed covariances, indicating that short‑term and long‑term memory suffice to explain the VLMT structure and enabling estimation of memory capacities from VLMT data. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc., J Clin Psychol 53:663–671.
The Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT) is widely used in scientific research as well as in clinical practice. But there exists little research on the structure of the AVLT. We investigated the structure of a German version of the AVLT, and VLMT, in 232 patients of a psychiatric clinic and in 872 patients of an epileptologic clinic. First we stated a theoretical LISREL model relating the observed variables of the VLMT to short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM) as latent variables. Then we estimated the postulated LISREL model in the two samples. The proposed model showed excellent fit in both samples, and there were no significant deviations between the estimated and the observed covariance matrices. Thus, STM and LTM suffice to explain the structure of the VLMT, and the proposed structural equations model can be used to estimate STM and LTM capacity from VLMT data. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol 53: 663–671, 1997.