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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Nov 22.
Published in final edited form as: Obesity (Silver Spring). 2019 May 22;27(7):1099–1106. doi: 10.1002/oby.22508

Table 1.

Neuropsychological Test Measures

Test Measure Test Description
Attention
ARCPT Inconsistency Computerized measure of vigilance and sustained attention. Participants respond through a single keystroke when a specific combination of letters appears on the screen. Indices examined included inconsistency, final ISI (i.e., the minimum interval between stimulus items ISI at which participants can maintain 80% accuracy), and sensitivity a’ (i.e., accuracy in detecting hit targets).
ARCPT Final ISI
ARCPT Sensitivity a’

Processing Speed
TMT Part A Assessment of visual search speed requiring examinee to draw a continuous line through 25 consecutive numbered circles; performance is measured by overall completion time.
Stroop Word Reading Measures selective attention, cognitive speed, and response inhibition.
Stroop Color Naming The test includes two baseline trials lasting 45 seconds each. Trial I (Word Reading) consists of 100 randomly arranged words (RED, GREEN, and BLUE) that the participant must quickly read aloud. In Trial II (Color Naming), the participant quickly names color patches.

Memory
CVLT-II Total Recall Requires learning and recall of a 16-item word list. After the initial learning phase, participants are asked to recall the list after a 20-minute delay. Indices examined included total recall (trials 1–5) and long delay free recall.
CVLT-II Long Delay

Executive Functioning
Stroop Color-Word Contains colored words in which the word and the color do not match. This test provides a measure of ‘cognitive inhibition in terms of the ability to inhibit a pre-potent response (reading the word) in favor of naming the ink color.
TMT Part B Requires that the examinee draw a continuous line through consecutive numbers and letters, alternating the order each time a connection is made (i.e., 1-A-2-B-3-C, etc.). Unlike Part A, this task introduces the added cognitive demand of mental set-shifting.

Verbal Fluency
Letter Fluency (COWAT) Speeded word-retrieval based on letter cues. Performance based on total number of correct responses.
Animal Fluency Rapid word generation for a semantic category. Performance based on total number of correct responses.

Overall Cognition Composite score generated using aggregate data from the above individual domains.

Note. ARCPT = Adaptive Rate Continuous Performance Test41; TMT = Trail-Making Test42; Stroop = Stroop Color-Word Test43; CLVT-II = California Verbal Learning Test – 2nd Edition (CVLT-II)44 Verbal Fluency = Controlled Oral Word Association (COWAT) and Semantic fluency (Animals)45