The Word Memory Test in medicolegal assessment: a measure of effort and malingering?

The Word Memory Test (WMT) is claimed to measure effort and to detect cognitive response bias. Archival data from n = 2526 cases referred in 2009–2016 for medicolegal assessment were analyzed. Each participant underwent a medical and a psychological examination including a cognitive test battery and several validity measures including the WMT. The WMT validity test scores do not approximately follow a normal distribution. Thus, parametric statistics for WMT validity scores may not be appropriate. WMT performance explains 0–20% of the variance in cognitive test performance. This is more than what substantial brain damage accounts for. The standard uniform cutoff indicating a ‘fail’ in all three WMT effort subtests (equal or less than 82.5% correct responses) seems not supported by the data. Taking into account the context of the testing, cutoffs may be chosen according to the desired sensitivity or specificity. ROC-statistics with modified Slick criteria as gold standard for malingering look alike for the three WMT effort subtests, with a AUC between 0.86 and 0.88. The WMT seems a good indicator of both effort and (Slick) malingering, however, little is gained by administering the entire test.     

Assessing measurement invariance of PCL-R assessments from file reviews of North American and German offenders

Cross-cultural research on psychopathy necessitates assessment methods that are generalizable across linguistic and cultural differences. Multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare the factorial structure of Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) assessments obtained from file reviews of North-American (N = 2622) and German (N = 443) male offenders. The analyses indicated that the 18 item, 4-factor model of the PCL-R obtained with the standard PCL-R protocol (interview and file review) also holds for file review data. On a factor-by-factor level, the data are commensurate with strong factorial invariance of factor loadings and item thresholds for the Interpersonal and Lifestyle factors, and with likely metric invariance for the Affective factor. The Antisocial factor showed structural differences between the two samples. The results imply that cultural or environmental factors more strongly influence the judgment and/or expression of antisociality. Based on the results, cross-cultural comparisons between North-American and German offenders in terms of PCL-R psychopathy should be limited to the Interpersonal and Lifestyle factors. Further research using data obtained through the standard protocol (i.e., interview plus file information) is encouraged.     

Forensic veterinary radiology: Ballistic-radiological 3D computertomographic reconstruction of an illegal lynx shooting in Switzerland

The lynx, which was reintroduced to Switzerland after being exterminated at the beginning of the 20th century, is protected by Swiss law. However, poaching occurs from time to time, which makes criminal investigations necessary. In the presented case, an illegally shot lynx was examined by conventional plane radiography and three-dimensional multislice computertomography (3D MSCT), of which the latter yielded superior results with respect to documentation and reconstruction of the inflicted gunshot wounds. We believe that 3D MSCT, already described in human forensic-pathological cases, is also a suitable and promising new technique for veterinary pathology.     

Performance in Public Organizations: Clarifying the Conceptual Space

Performance in public organizations is a key concept that requires clarification. Based on a conceptual review of research published in 10 public administration journals, this article proposes six distinctions to describe the systematic differences in performance criteria: From which stakeholder's perspective is performance being assessed? Are the criteria formal or informal? Are the criteria subjective? Which process focus and product focus do they have, if any? What is the unit of analysis? Based on these distinctions, the performance criteria of existing studies used in an empirical review of management and performance are classified. The results illustrate how a systematization of the conceptual space of performance in public organizations can help researchers select what to study and what to leave out with greater accuracy while also bringing greater clarity to public debates about performance.