Chapter 3
Clinical Assessment
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“ An evidence-based approach to clinical
assessment necessitates the recognition
that even when evidence- based
instruments are used, the assessment
process is a decision-making task in
which hypotheses must be iteratively
formulated and tested .”
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Hunsley and Mash, 2010, p. 76
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Which Theoretical Orientations Are
Practiced in The Field?
2010 survey and earlier surveys conducted over
50 years with members of the Society of Clinical
Psychologists (Norcross & Karpiak, 2012).
The most predominant theoretical orientation
was:
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cognitive (31%),
eclectic-integrative (22%)
psychodynamic (18%)
behavioural (15%)
humanistic (4%)
Therapeutic Assessment
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The basic premise of therapeutic
assessment:
assessment itself can be therapeutic.
It can provide new insights, a sense
of relief, a more mindful approach to
cope with life challenges, or simply
the sense that someone is taking an
interest and cares.
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Therapeutic Assessment
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Examples of Therapeutic Assessment….
Finn and Tonsager (1992) found that providing personality
score feedback to students awaiting therapy lowered their
distress and raised self-esteem.
After receiving the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
:
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Newman and Greenway (1997) reported that students who
received feedback had significant reductions in distress and
significant increases in self-esteem relative to those students who
did not receive feedback about their test results.
Telling perfectionistic students about their perfectionism
reduced emotional reactivity and psychological distress (Aldea,
Rice, Gormley, & Rojas, 2010).
Therapeutic Assessment
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Finn (2007) suggested a key early session
is the assessment interview that takes
place shortly after test results are available.
Here the client will discuss his or her
problems in living as the
assessor/therapist begins the process of
relating these problems to test feedback.
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Therapeutic Assessment
•
This session is following by a summary and
discussion session, which involves a focus on
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Level 1 findings (i.e., findings that are congruent
with how people see themselves)
Level 2 findings (i.e., findings that amplify or
reframe how people typically see themselves)
Level 3 findings (i.e., information findings that
conflict with self-views)
Reliability And Validity In
Assessment
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Reliability
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the cornerstone of any diagnostic system
refers to consistency of measurement.
Reliability is assessed via correlation (a
measure of how closely two variables are
related).
The higher the correlation, the better the
reliability.
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Subtypes of Reliability
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Inter-rater reliability
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refers to the degree to which two
independent observers or judges agree.
Subtypes of Reliability
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Test-retest reliability
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measures the extent to which people being observed
twice or taking the same test twice score in generally
the same way.
Only makes sense when the theory assumes that
people will not change appreciably between testings on
the variable being measured
Alternate-form reliability
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The use two forms of a test
Internal Consistency Reliability
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Assesses if the items on a test are related to one
another.
Validity
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Central question to validity:
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Does a measure fulfills its intended purpose?
Validity is related to reliability:
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unreliable measures will not have good validity
Subtypes Of Validity
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Content validity
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refers to whether a measure adequately samples the domain of
interest
Criterion validity
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is evaluated by determining whether a measure is associated
in an expected way with some other measure (the criterion).
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concurrent validity (same point in time)
predictive validity (a point in the future)
Construct validity
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Is a test a measure of some characteristic or construct that is
not simply defined (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955).
evaluated by looking at a wide variety of data from multiple
sources.
Validity
•
Validity of diagnostic categories?
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Construct validity
Case Validity
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Suggested recently by Teglasi, Nebbergall, and
Newman (2012).
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the focus is on validity of the interpretations and
decisions made with respect to a particular person.
Case validity would be demonstrated when the person
is accurately assessed in their life context in a way that
takes into account interactions between the person and
situations as well as interactions of the person’s
schemas
Case validity requires considering the person in typical
situations versus maximal situations (i.e., the difference
between how a person usually is versus what they are
capable of in atypical or extreme situations).
Psychological Assessment
•
Psychological assessment techniques are designed
to determine cognitive, emotional, personality, and
behavioural factors in psychopathological
functioning.
Clinical Interviews
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Interview
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…any interpersonal encounter, conversational in
style, in which one person, the interviewer, uses
language as the principal means of finding out about
another person, the interviewee.
Clinical Interview
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The paradigm within which an interviewer operates
influences the type of information sought, how it is
obtained, and how it is interpreted .
the interviewer pays attention to how the respondent
answers—or does not answer— questions.
Clinical Interviews
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Great skill is necessary to carry out good
clinical interviews, for they are usually
conducted with people who are under
considerable stress.
It is critical to establish rapport with the
client.
Most clinicians empathise with their clients in
an effort to draw them out, to encourage
them to elaborate on their concerns, and to
examine different facets of a problem.
Clinical Interviews
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The interview can be a source of
considerable information to the clinician.
Its importance in abnormal psychology and
psychiatry is unquestionable. Whether the
information gleaned can always be
depended on is not so clear, however.
Interviews vary in the degree to which they
are structured.
Reliability of Unstructured Clinical Interviews
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to the extent that an interview is unstructured, the
interviewer must rely on intuition and general
experience.
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Reliability for initial clinical interviews is probably
low.
Structured Interviews
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…an interview where the questions are set out in a
prescribed fashion for the interviewer
Used when mental health professionals need to collect
standardized information, particularly for making
diagnostic judgements based on the DSM (the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of
the American Psychiatric Association).
With adequate training of clinicians, inter-rater reliability
for structured interviews is generally good (Blanchard &
Brown, 1998).
Structured Clinical
Interview Diagnosis (SCID)
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The SCID is a branching interview
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the client’s response to one question determines the
next question that is asked.
The SCID contains detailed instructions to the
interviewer concerning when and how to probe in
detail and when to go on to questions bearing on
another diagnosis.
Most symptoms are rated on a three-point scale of
severity, with instructions in the interview schedule for
directly translating the symptom ratings into
diagnoses.
Evidence-Based Assessment
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Evidence-based assessment selects assessment
measures based on extensive criteria including the
reliability and validity of the measures and reading
level required.
Psychological Tests
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Psychological tests are standardized procedures
designed to measure a person’s performance on a
particular task or to assess his or her personality, or
thoughts, feelings, and behaviour.
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They may yield important information such as
personality characteristics or situational
determinants of a person’s problems.
Psychological Tests
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Standardization
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Test norms
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Standards that are used to interpret an
individual ’s score because the score by itself
for an individual is meaningless without a
comparison context.
Personality Inventories
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For a personality inventory the person is asked to
complete a self-report questionnaire indicating
whether statements assessing habitual tendencies
apply to him or her.
•
The best-known and most frequently used and
researched psychological test in the United
States (see Butcher, Nezami, & Exner, 1998) is
the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI) .
Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory (MMPI)
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Intended to serve as an inexpensive means of
detecting psychopathology
Called multiphasic because it was designed to
detect a number of psychological problems
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The MMPI has been widely used to screen
large groups of people for whom clinical
interviews are not feasible.
Developing the MMPI
• Many clinicians provided statements that they considered
indicative of various mental problems.
• These items were rated as self-descriptive or not by clients
already diagnosed as having particular disorders and by a
large group of individuals considered normal. Items that
“discriminated” among the clients were retained
• Items were selected if clients in one clinical group
responded to them more often in a certain way than did
those in other groups.
Developing the MMPI
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If an individual answered a large number of the
items in a scale in the same way as had a certain
diagnostic group, his or her behaviour was
expected to resemble that of the particular
diagnostic group.
Faking on The MMPI
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A superficial knowledge of contemporary abnormal
psychology, for example, would alert even a seriously
disturbed person that in order to be regarded as
normal, he or she must not admit to worrying a great
deal about germs on doorknobs.
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There is evidence that these tests can be “psyched out.”
In most testing circumstances, however, people do not
want to falsify their responses, because they want to
be helped.
Faking on The MMPI
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The test designers have included as part of the MMPI
several so-called validity scales designed to detect
deliberately faked responses.
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In one of these, the lie scale, a series of statements
sets a trap for the person who is trying to look too
good.
An item on the lie scale might be, “I read the
newspaper editorials every night.”
The assumption is that few people would be able to
endorse such a statement honestly. Individuals who
endorse a large number of the statements in the lie
scale might well be attempting to present themselves in
a particularly good light.
MMPI-2 Lees-Haley Fake Bad Scale
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This scale was created to primarily identify people in personal
litigation lawsuits who claim to have been injured but who are
actually malingering and faking bad (i.e., accentuating deficits that
don’t really exist, such as the child who pretends to have a
stomach ache to get out of going to school).
What is the problem with the Fake Bad Scale?
Analyses indicate that it tends to misclassify an unacceptably
high proportion of people as fakers who are not actually faking
(see Butcher, Arbisi, Atlis, & McNulty, 2008; Nelson, Sweet, &
Demakis, 2006).
The situation reached its apex in 2007 when MMPI-2 test
results were barred for use in court cases in Florida.
These concerns have resulted in the recommendation that
multiple assessments be used when trying to detect
malingering (see McDermott, 2012).
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Projective Personality Tests
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…a psychological assessment device in
which a set of standard stimuli,
ambiguous enough to allow variation in
responses, is presented to the individual.
The projective hypothesis
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As the stimulus materials are unstructured, the
client’s responses will be determined primarily by
unconscious processes and will reveal his or her
true attitudes, motivations, and modes of
behaviour.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
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Is the best-known projective technique.
a person is shown 10 inkblots, one at a time, and
asked to tell what figures or objects he or she sees
in each of them.
Half the inkblots are in black, white, and shades of
grey, two also have red splotches, and three are in
pastel colours.
Posting of the Rorschach Online
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This test has been a matter of controversy and
public debate, including in 2009, when the test was
posted on Wikipedia along with recommended
answers when the copyright lapsed and the
measure was deemed to be in the public domain
(for a discussion, see Butcher, 2010).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
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…a person is shown a series of black-and-white
pictures one by one and asked to tell a story related
to each.
The Origins of Projective Tests and Their
Assumptions
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Projective techniques are derived from the
psychoanalytic paradigm.
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The use of projective tests assumes that the
respondent would be either unable or unwilling
to express his or her true feelings if asked
directly.
The real purposes of a test are best left unclear
so as to bypass the defence mechanism of
repression and get to the basic causes of
distress.
The Origins of Projective Tests and Their
Assumptions
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The content of the person’s responses
was viewed as symbolic of internal
dynamics
Other uses of projective tests concentrate
more on the form of the person’s
responses.
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The test is considered more as a perceptualcognitive task, and the person ’s responses are
viewed as a sample of how he or she perceptually
and cognitively organizes real-life situations
(Exner, 1986).
Reliability and Validity With Projective Measures
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Regarding its reliability and validity, this work has
enthusiastic supporters, as well as harsh critics
(e.g., Garb, Wood, Lilienfeld, & Nezworski, 2005).
Attempting to make a blanket statement about the
validity of the Exner system for scoring the
Rorschach is not the right approach
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The Rorschach appears to have considerable validity in
identifying people with schizophrenia or at risk of developing
schizophrenia (Viglione, 1999).
The Roberts Apperception Test for Children
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A standardized, objectively scored assessment tool
Pictures of children and families are presented to the
child, who tells a story about each one.
Roberts test provides objective criteria for scoring,
along with normative data to determine whether the
child ’s pattern of responses is abnormal.
Unique to this test are the scales that provide
information about a child ’s coping skills.
Critics of Projective Tests
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Critics of projective testing have been and
remain particularly concerned about its use as
part of assessment and testimony in the
courtroom.
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these measures continue to be used because they
“overpathologize” respondents, suggesting that they are
psychologically sick or dangerous in a way that might fit
the agendas of certain lawyers.
Another common use is to establish post-traumatic
stress dysfunction in personal injury cases.
Intelligence Tests
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Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, originally
constructed mental tests to help the Parisian school
board predict which children were in need of special
schooling.
An intelligence test , often referred as an IQ
(intelligence quotient) test, is a standardized means
of assessing a person ’s current mental ability.
How are intelligence tests used?
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To predict how well a child will perform in school.
To diagnose learning disabilities and to identify areas of
strengths and weaknesses for academic planning
To help determine whether a person is mentally retarded
To identify intellectually gifted children
A part of neuropsychological evaluations
• The periodic testing of a person believed to be suffering
from a degenerative dementia so that deterioration of
mental ability can be followed over time.
Distribution of IQ Scores
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Scores on most IQ tests are standardized so
that 100 is the mean and 15 or 16 is the
standard deviation (a measure of how scores
are dispersed above and below the average).
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Approximately 65% of the population receives scores
between 85 and 115.
IQ tests are highly reliable (e.g., Carnivez &
Watkins, 1998) and have good criterion
validity.
Considerations With IQ
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Given the widespread use of IQ tests and other
measures of cognitive ability, it is important that
test-takers are evaluated according to norms that
are applicable to their geographical, cultural, and
racial backgrounds.
Comparing Races In Terms of IQ
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Intelligence tests and other measures of
cognitive ability have been the source of
extensive controversy over the years as a result
of apparent racial and cultural differences.
•
Reynolds and Suzuki (2012) note that differences
between Black and White populations have been
assessed for over 50 years and it is typically the case that
Blacks have scores that are lower by 15 points (or one
standard deviation). There are some indications that this
gap is narrowing with it now being about 10 points (see
Nisbett et al., 2012).
Comparing Races In Terms of IQ
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This difference in the scores of Blacks and Whites
has been highly controversial because authors
such as Jensen and Rushton have attributed the
difference to genetic factors, despite the fact that
research has yielded no evidence of genetic
polymorphisms (Nisbett et al., 2012).
IQ Scores and The Environment
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Environmental factors play a role in light of
evidence that there is a substantial increase in IQ
scores when children are adopted and move from
working class homes to middle-class homes
(Nisbett et al., 2012).
Stereotype Threat (Gasquoine, 2009)
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Also known as differential diagnostic threat
Scores fluctuate out of concerns about how the
information will be used according to stereotypical
preconceptions about members of a particular
group.
Cultural bias or racial bias in assessment
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This is not a simple issue
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it is not clear that such biases make the assessment
instruments useless.
Some studies of bias in testing conducted in the
United States have demonstrated that mainstream
procedures, such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale
for Children—Revised, have equivalent predictive
validity for minority and non-minority children (Sattler,
1992)
Racially Sensitive Norms
Emotional Intelligence
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Reflected in such abilities as delaying gratification and
being sensitive to the needs of others (Goleman, 1995).
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Emotional intelligence may also be an important protective
factor in terms of levels of adjustment.
High levels of emotional intelligence are associated
negatively with alexithymia (see Saklofske, Austin, &
Minski, 2003), a condition of reduced emotional awareness
that is a risk factor for a variety of adjustment problems.
High levels of emotional intelligence are associated with
greater levels of subjective well-being and reduced
proneness to depression (Saklofske et al., 2003).
Behavioural And Cognitive Assessment
And Case Formulation
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A case formulation is:
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“a provisional map of a person ’s presenting problems that
describes the territory of the problems and explains the
processes that caused and maintain the problem” (Bieling
& Kuyken, 2003, p. 53).
It includes a clinician’s inferences about underlying
processes that can be tested as hypotheses.
It is used as the basis for planning interventions and
evolves over time as further information is discovered.
SORC
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…behaviourally oriented clinicians often use a
system that involves the assessment of four sets of
variables, sometimes referred to by the acronym
SORC
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S - stimuli
O – organismic
R - overt responses
C - consequent variables
Stimuli
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S stands for stimuli
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the environmental situations that precede the
problem.
For instance, the clinician will try to ascertain
which situations tend to elicit anxiety.
Organismic
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Referring to both physiological and psychological
factors assumed to be operating “under the skin.”
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Perhaps the client ’s fatigue is caused in part by
excessive use of alcohol or by a cognitive
tendency toward self deprecation manifested in
such statements as “I never do anything right,
so what ’s the point in trying?”
Overt Responses
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These probably receive the most attention from
behavioural clinicians, who must determine what
behaviour is problematic, as well as the behaviour’s
frequency, intensity, and form.
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For example, a client might say that he or she is
forgetful and procrastinates. Does the person
mean that he or she does not return phone
calls, arrives late for appointments, or both?
Consequent variables
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Events that appear to be reinforcing or punishing
the behaviour in question.
When the client avoids a feared situation, does his
or her spouse offer sympathy and excuses, thereby
unwittingly keeping the person from facing up to his
or her fears?
Cognitive Behavioural Case Formulation
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…place considerable emphasis on cognitive events
such as people’s distorted thinking patterns,
negative self-instructions, irrational automatic
thoughts and beliefs, and schemas.
Direct Observation Of Behaviour
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Formal behavioural observation
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The observer divides the uninterrupted sequence of
behaviour into various parts and applies terms that make
sense within a learning framework.
It is difficult to observe most behaviour as it actually
takes place and little control can be exercised over
where and when it may occur.
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Many therapists contrive artificial situations in their
consulting rooms or in a laboratory so that they can
observe how a client or a family acts under certain
conditions.
Self-Observation
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Self-monitoring
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Self-monitoring has been used to collect a wide
variety of data of interest to both clinicians and
researchers, including moods, stressful
experiences, coping behaviours, and thoughts
(Stone et al., 1998).
Self-monitoring is also known as ecological
momentary assessment (EMA) (Stone &
Shiffman, 1994) and experience sampling
(see Trull & Ebner-Priemer, 2009).
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Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)
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EMA involves the collection of data in real
time
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retrospective recall of moods, thoughts, or
experiences may be inaccurate.
Memory researchers have shown not only that
simple forgetting leads to inaccurate retrospective
recall, but also that recalled information can be
biased.
Reactivity
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The phenomenon of behaviour changing
because it is being observed
Considerable research indicates that
behaviour may be altered by the very fact that
it is being self-monitored; that is, the selfconsciousness required for self-monitoring
affects the behaviour (Haynes & Horn, 1982).
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Self-Report Inventories
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…some of these questionnaires are similar to the
personality tests.
…others have a greater situational focus than
traditional questionnaires.
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McFall and Lillesand (1971), for example, employed
a Conflict Resolution Inventory
35 items that focused on the respondent’s ability to refuse
unreasonable requests.
Cognitive Assessment
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The most widely employed cognitive
assessment methods are self-report
questionnaires that tap a wide range
of cognitions, such as
• fear of negative evaluation
• a tendency to think irrationally
• a tendency to make negative inferences about life
experiences.
Specialized Approaches To Cognitive Assessment
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Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations
(ATSS)
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In this procedure, a person pretends that he or she is
a participant in a situation, such as listening to a
teaching assistant criticize a term paper.
Presented on audio tape, the scene pauses every 10
or 15 seconds.
During the ensuing 30 seconds of silence, the
participant talks aloud about whatever is going
through his or her mind in reaction to the words just
heard.
Specialized Approaches To Cognitive
Assessment
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Thought listing
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the person writes down his or her thoughts prior to or
following an event of interest, such as entering a room
to talk to a stranger, as a way to determine the
cognitive components of social anxiety (Cacioppo, von
Hippel, & Ernst, 1997).
Specialized Approaches To Cognitive
Assessment
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Videotape reconstruction
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involves videotaping an individual while he or
she is engaged in some task or an actual or
roleplayed problematic situation. The person
then watches the videotape while attempting to
reconstruct his or her thoughts and feelings at
the time as accurately as possible.
Specialized Approaches To Cognitive Assessment: A
Problem
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Various cognitive assessment techniques
often correlate poorly with one another
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This challenge can be especially difficult when it
comes to cognitive assessment of children (e.g.,
Lodge, Tripp, & Harte, 2000).
One has increased confidence when
several different strategies are employed.
Family Assessment
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Considers the role of the family in the development of
abnormal behaviour
Central to classical psychoanalytic theories
object-relations theories (e.g., Kernberg, 1985) that focus on an infant
’s attachment to the mother figure
to social learning theory with its emphasis on the role of imitation of
powerful parent figures (e.g., Bandura & Walters, 1963)
interpersonal theories (e.g., Sullivan, 1953) that regard people as
products of their social interactions.
Family systems perspective (e.g., Minuchin et al., 1975)
behaviours produced in the family environment reflect the various
components that are present in the family setting, including the
characteristics of each family member and the various interactions
between family members.
Family Assessment
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equifinality
the notion that the same goal or
endpoint can result from many different
starting points and different processes.
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Family Assessment
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Clinicians and researchers often rely heavily on selfreport measures of the family environment and family
functioning
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these measures provide little insight into the family as an
interacting system.
Examples of measures used in Family Assessment
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Family Environment Scale (FES)
Family Adaptation and Cohesion Evaluation Scale—
Fourth Edition (FACES-IV; Olson, 2011)
The Parental Bonding Inventory
Biological Assessment
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Types Of Brain Imaging
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Computerized axial tomography (CT scan)
A moving beam of X-rays passes into a horizontal
cross-section of the client ’s brain, scanning it
through 360 degrees; the moving X-ray detector
on the other side measures the amount of
radioactivity that penetrates, thus detecting subtle
differences in tissue density.
the client’s head is moved, and the machine
scans another cross-section of the brain.
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Biological Assessment
•
Types Of Brain Imaging
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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
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MRI is superior to the CT scan because it produces
pictures of higher quality and does not rely on even the
small amount of radiation required by a CT scan.
the person is placed inside a large, circular magnet,
which causes the hydrogen atoms in the body to move.
When the magnetic force is turned off , the atoms
return to their original positions and thereby produce
an electromagnetic signal. These signals are then read
by the computer and translated into pictures of brain
tissue.
Biological Assessment
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Types Of Brain Imaging
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
allows researchers to take MRI pictures so quickly
that metabolic changes can be measured, providing a
picture of the brain at work rather than of its structure
alone.
It enables investigators to map cognitive, affective,
and experiential processes onto brain substrates.
Using this technique, one study found that there was
less activation in the frontal lobes of clients with
schizophrenia than in the frontal lobes of people with
normal-functioning brains as they performed a
cognitive task (Yurgelun-Todd et al., 1996).
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Biological Assessment
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Types Of Brain Imaging
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Positron emission tomography (PET scan)
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a more expensive and invasive procedure that allows for
measurement of brain function.
A substance used by the brain is labelled with a short-lived
radioactive isotope and injected into the bloodstream. The
radioactive molecules of the substance emit a particle called a
positron, which quickly collides with an electron.
A pair of high-energy light particles shoot out from the skull in
opposite directions and are detected by the scanner.
A computer analyzes millions of such recordings and converts
them into a picture of the functioning brain. The images are in
colour; fuzzy spots of lighter and warmer colours are areas in
which metabolic rates for the substance are higher.
Neuropsychological Assessment
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Neurologist
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a physician who specializes in medical diseases that
affect the nervous system.
Neuropsychologist
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a psychologist who studies how dysfunctions of the brain
affect the way we think, feel, and behave.
Both kinds of specialists contribute much to each other
as they work in different ways, often collaboratively, to
learn how the nervous system functions and how to
ameliorate problems caused by disease or injury to the
brain.
The Goals of Neuropsychological Testing
• to measure as reliably, validly, and completely as possible
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the behavioural correlates of brain functions
to identify the characteristic profile associated with a
neurobehavioural syndrome (differential diagnosis)
to establish possible localization, lateralization, and etiology
of a brain lesion
to determine whether neuropsychological deficits are present
(i.e., cognitive, perceptual, or motor) regardless of diagnosis
to describe neuropsychological strengths, weaknesses, and
strategy of problem solving
to assess the patient ’s feelings about his or her syndrome
to provide treatment recommendations (i.e., to client, family,
school)
Neuropsychological Assessment
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Neuropsychological Tests
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tests developed to assess behavioural
disturbances caused by brain dysfunctions.
based on the idea that different psychological
functions (e.g., motor speed, memory,
language) are localized in different areas of the
brain. Thus, finding a deficit on a particular test
can provide clues about where in the brain
some damage may exist.
Psychophysiological Assessment
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Psychophysiology is concerned with the bodily
changes that accompany psychological events or that
are associated with a person ’s psychological
characteristics.
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measures such as heart rate, tension in the muscles,
blood flow in various parts of the body, and brain waves
to study the physiological changes that occur when
people are afraid, depressed, asleep, imagining, solving
problems, and so on.
The assessments described here are not sensitive
enough to be used for diagnosis; they can, however,
provide important information.
Psychophysiological Assessment
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Electrocardiogram
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Measures heart rate
Each heartbeat generates spreading changes
in electrical potential, which can be recorded
by an electrocardiograph, or on a suitably
tuned polygraph, and graphically depicted in
an.
Electrodes are usually placed on the chest and
lead to an instrument for measuring electric
currents.
•
•
Psychophysiological Assessment
•
Electrodermal responding
•
A measure of autonomic nervous system activity or
skin conductance.
•
•
Anxiety, fear, anger, and other emotions increase
activity in the sympathetic nervous system, which then
boosts sweat-gland activity.
Conductance is typically measured by determining the
current that flows through the skin when a known
small voltage derived from an external source is
passed between two electrodes on the hand. This
current shows a pronounced increase after activation
of the sweat glands.
Psychophysiological Assessment
•
Electroencephalogram (EEG).
•
•
•
A measure of brain activity
Electrodes placed on the scalp record electrical
activity in the underlying brain area.
Abnormal patterns of electrical activity can
indicate epilepsy or can help in locating brain
lesions or tumours.
Copyright
•
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