Effects of Practice in Repeated Administrations of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised in Normal Adults

Abstract

Practice effects were examined over four administrations of the immediate (I) and delayed (II) portions of three subtests of the WMS-R: Logical Memory (LM), Verbal Paired Associates (VPA), and Visual Reproduction (VR). A repeated measures ANOVA revealed that large and significant (p < .001) increases occurred in the General Memory (GM) and Delayed Recall (DR) indices and in the LMI, LMII, and VPAI subtests (Effect Sizes [ESs] = 0.70-0.87). Small but significant (p < .001) increases occurred in VRI (ES = 0.24) and VRII (ES = 0.43). The greatest increase in scores occurred at the first retest session, whereas increases of smaller magnitudes occurred at Sessions 3 and 4. Ceiling effects occur in subtests (VPAII, VRI, and VRII) on which individuals score most of the total possible points at the first testing session; this makes interpretation of practice effects difficult. Test-retest reliability coefficients, mean change scores from Session 1 to Session 2, standard errors of prediction, and 95% confidence intervals are presented. These score changes need to be taken into consideration when interpreting performance at retest.

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