Luciano Giromini

Università degli Studi di Torino | UNITO · Dipartimento di Psicologia

The field of psychological injury and law is marked by use of psychometrically sound validity tests that use empirically derived cut scores to determine the credibility of cognitive deficits and psychological symptoms in forensic and related disability assessments (FDRA). Performance validity tests (PVTs) are used in neuropsychological/cognitive as...

Context: In high-stakes assessments, such as court cases or managerial evaluations, decision-makers heavily rely on psychological testing. These assessments often play a crucial role in determining important decisions that affect a person’s life and have a significant impact on society. Problem Statement: Research indicates that many psychological...

Professionals are encouraged to include multiple symptom validity tests (SVTs) and multiple performance validity tests (PVTs) to assess the credibility of clinical and forensic presentations. Combining the Inventory of Problems–29 (IOP-29, an SVT) with its Memory module (IOP-M, a PVT), referred to here as ‘IOP-29-M’, may be especially beneficial, a...

This second article of two articles on the base rate of invalid response set in forensic disability and related assessments (FDRA) concentrates on presenting in depth the 118 studies found on the question after an exhaustive literature search. The articles are presented in tabular format, including for their samples, procedures, performance and sym...

Objective Consistent with the NAN expectations, the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (Sweet et al., 2021) asserted that neuropsychologists should include symptom validity tests (SVT) and performance validity tests (PVT) to assess the credibility of psychological and cognitive complaints. Aligned with this declaration, the Inventory of P...

Some widely agreed-upon, official recommendations for professionals conducting psychological assessments suggest employing multiple symptom validity tests (SVTs) to screen the validity of symptom reports. Yet, SVTs are rarely validated in languages other than English, and no free-standing SVT exists in Serbia. To address this gap and stimulate furt...

This study was designed to test the upper limits of the Rey-15’s classification accuracy in cognitively intact university students and clinical patients. A brief battery of neuropsychological tests was administered to all participants. Students were randomly assigned to either the control (n = 80) or experimental malingering (n = 59) condition. Inv...

The Rorschach cards may elicit components of personality functioning that escape consciousness but which may influence observable performance during the test. Similarly, the manifest content of dreams may contain unconscious experiential elements that contribute to the formation of the content that the subject then remembers and tells to other peop...

Fuermaier et al. (Applied Neuropsychology: Adult, 2023) reported that the Beck Depression Inventory–Second Edition (BDI-II; Beck et al. in Beck Depression Inventory – (2nd ed.), Psychological Corporation, 1996) can also serve as symptom validity test (SVT) in a compensation seeking Austrian sample. This study was designed to replicate their finding...

Typically, research on response bias in symptom reports covers two extreme ends of the spectrum: overreporting and underreporting. Yet, little is known about symptom presentation that includes both types of response bias simultaneously (i.e., mixed presentation). We experimentally checked how overreporting, underreporting, and mixed reporting refle...

Our study compared the impact of administering Symptom Validity Tests (SVTs) and Performance Validity Tests (PVTs) in in-person versus remote formats and assessed different approaches to combining validity test results. Using the MMPI-2-RF, IOP-29, IOP-M, and FIT, we assessed 164 adults, with half instructed to feign mild traumatic brain injury (mT...

Health risk behaviors, such as cigarette smoking, may be triggered by failures in thought suppression, a cognitive avoidance strategy associated with rumination. To date, no study has examined the role of personality features in the performance of thought suppression in smokers and nonsmokers. To address this gap in the literature, we aimed to (1)...

Bariatric surgery (BS) is an effective approach to treat severe obesity, which should include multidisciplinary care. Prior to surgery, candidates for BS usually undergo a psychological assessment based mostly on self-report of clinical symptoms. However, the results of this assessment are not always sufficient to predict outcomes. Therefore, this...

Objective: This study was designed to replicate previous research on the clinical utility of the Verbal Paired Associates (VPA) and Visual Reproduction (VR) subtests of the WMS-IV as embedded performance validity tests (PVTs) and perform a critical item (CR) analysis within the VPA recognition trial. Method: Archival data were collected from a mixe...

This study was designed to evaluate the utility of the Atypical Responses (ATR) scale of the Trauma Symptom Inventory – Second Edition (TSI-2) as a symptom validity test (SVT) in a medicolegal sample. Archival data were collected from a consecutive case sequence of 99 patients referred for neuropsychological evaluation following a motor vehicle col...

This editorial article introduces the second special issue of Psychology & Neuroscience devoted to performance and symptom validity testing. The reason for including the second special issue is that we received an unusually large number of high-quality submissions that could not fit into a single volume. The articles included in this second part of...

Current guidelines for conducting symptom validity assessments require that professionals administer multiple symptom validity tests (SVTs) and that the SVTs selected for their evaluations provide nonredundant information. However, not many SVTs are currently available, and most of them rely on the same, (in)frequency-based, feigning detection stra...

It has been proposed that seeing human movement or activity (M), while trying to say what the static Rorschach inkblot design look like, is accompanied by Mirror Neuron System (MNS)-like mirroring activity in the brain. The present study aimed to investigate whether the Rorschach cards eliciting M responses could affect the excitability of the moto...

The increasing obesity rates in the last decades pose a challenge to health care providers, and bariatric surgery is an important tool for treating severe obesity. Because various psychological factors are known to influence the long-term outcome of bariatric surgery and failure of bariatric surgery can lead to psychological harm, candidates for ba...

Areh et al. (Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 29:183–205, 2022) recently commented on what standards should be applied to determine whether a test is appropriate for psycholegal use and concluded that the Rorschach does not meet their proposed standards. Accordingly, they concluded that psychologists should not use it in legal contexts. However, Areh...

This editorial article introduces a special issue of Psychology & Neuroscience dealing with performance and symptom validity testing (SVTs). We first discuss the importance of assessing the credibility of observed performance on cognitive tasks and of symptoms reported in questionnaires or clinical interviews, both in research and in clinical and f...

Sometimes forensic psychologists are asked to determine whether the symptoms of PTSD presented by the plaintiff are genuine or feigned. To this end, they may use both symptom validity tests (SVTs) and performance validity tests (PVTs), but SVTs are used far more frequently in these assessments. Thus, we conducted a natural experiment and administer...

Objective This study was design to evaluate the potential of the recognition trials for the Logical Memory (LM), Visual Reproduction (VR), and Verbal Paired Associates (VPA) subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scales–Fourth Edition (WMS-IV) to serve as embedded performance validity tests (PVTs). Method The classification accuracy of the three WMS-IV s...

Personality traits play a role in prosocial behavior in relation to containment measures intended to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical findings indicated that individuals high in socially aversive traits such as callousness are less compliant with containment measures. This study aimed to add cross-cultural data on the relationship between an...

Assessing the credibility of reported mental health problems is critical in a variety of assessment situations, particularly in forensic contexts. Previous research has examined how the assessment of performance validity can be improved through the use of bio-behavioral measures (e.g., eye movements). To date, however, there is a paucity of literat...

Assessing the credibility of symptoms is critical to neuropsychological assessment in both clinical and forensic settings. To this end, the Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29) and its recently added memory module (Inventory of Problems-Memory; IOP-M) appear to be particularly useful, as they provide a rapid and cost-effective measure of both symptom...

Il "malingering" è la simulazione o l'esagerazione intenzionale di una patologia fisica o mentale, messa in atto allo scopo di ottenere benefici tangibili quali il ricevimento di un risarcimento economico o la mitigazione di una sentenza criminale. In questo articolo si prende in esame il fenomeno con un'enfasi particolare sulla diagnosi differenzi...

In 2013, a special issue of the Spanish journal Clínica y Salud published a review on symptom and performance validity assessment in European countries (Merten et al. in Clínica y Salud, 24(3), 129–138, 2013). At that time, developments were judged to be in their infancy in many countries, with major publication activities stemming from only four c...

A few years ago, an article describing the current status of Symptom Validity Assessment (SVA) practices and beliefs in European countries reported that there was little research activity in Italy (Merten et al., 2013). The same article also highlighted that Italian practitioners were less inclined to use Symptom Validity Tests (SVTs) and Performan...

Emotion regulation (ER) is a core element for individual well-being, and dysregulated emotional states are prominent in several mental disorders. Moreover, dispositional use of adaptive ER strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal, is usually associated to better psychological outcomes and less emotional problems. Thus, identifying markers of emoti...

In this pilot and exploratory study, we tested the robustness of three self-report symptom validity tests (SVTs) to symptom coaching for depression, with and without additional information available on the Internet. Specifically, we divided our sample (N = 193) so that each subject received either the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatolo...

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has required psychologists to adopt measures like physical distancing and mask wearing, though other safety procedures such as travel restrictions or prohibitions on in-person practice and research have fostered the use of tele-health tools. In this article, we review options for using the Rorschach task via videoconfe...

This study examined food attitudes, mindful eating, and satisfaction with food-related life (SWFL) among Italian and American college students. Food attitudes (Diet-Health Orientation and Food Negativity), SWFL, and Awareness and Recognition, the subscales of a mindful eating questionnaire, were measured. There was significant difference in Awarene...

We tested whether three relatively popular self-report validity tests (SRVTs) are vulnerable to symptom coaching of depression, with or without additional google-available information. Specifically, we divided our sample (N = 193) so that they either received the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS; n = 64), Self-Report Symptom...

This article reviews published, journal articles informing on the conditions of use, strengths, weaknesses, and optimal cut scores of the Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29; Viglione & Giromini, 2020). To provide more accurate information on the convergent and incremental validity, hit rates, and optimal cut scores of the IOP-29, in addition to revie...

In psychological injury and related forensic evaluations, two types of tests are commonly used to assess Negative Response Bias (NRB): Symptom Validity Tests (SVTs) and Performance Validity Tests (PVTs). SVTs assess the credibility of self-reported symptoms, whereas PVTs assess the credibility of observed performance on cognitive tasks. Compared to...

This study investigated eye movements associated with the production of different Rorschach responses involving the use of the inkless (or “white space”) areas of the inkblots. More specifically, we examined whether Space Integration (SI) and Space Reversal (SR) responses associated with different test-taker’s approaches to visually inspecting the...

The Rorschach is one of the most popular performance-based tests and it is thought to provide information on relatively stable individual differences, including respondent inclinations and preferences. To investigate the extent to which minor, nonconscious, emotional fluctuations in the respondent’s mind could influence Rorschach scores, we used a...

In this article, we hypothesized that in order to feign mental illness, one would need to have empathy and be able to understand other’s mental states. To test this hypothesis, we asked 432 healthy volunteers to feign depression, PTSD or schizophrenia while completing a self-report test that measures the severity of the feigned condition’s symptoms...

This study examined the effectiveness of the negative distortion measures from the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29), by investigating data from a community and a forensic sample, across three different symptom presentations (i.e., feigned depression, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], and schizophrenia...

On January 31, 2020, the first two cases of COVID-19 were detected in Italy; the extent and the rapidity of virus spread forced the Italian Government to take extraordinary measures to prevent contagion. In this study, we aimed to compare data collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic on the depression symptomatology in a sample from the ge...

Oral–Dependent Language (ODL) is currently included in the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) as an empirically supported variable that measures both implicit and explicit psychological processes related to dependence and oral motives. To date, almost all studies on ODL have been conducted in the U.S. so that little is known about how...

Research on malingering detection has not yet taken full advantage of eye tracking technology. In particular, while several studies indicate that patients with schizophrenia behave notably differently from controls on specific oculomotor tasks, no study has yet investigated whether experimental participants instructed to feign could reproduce those...

While the psychometric equivalence of computerized versus paper-and-pencil administration formats has been documented for some tests, so far very few studies have focused on the comparability and validity of test scores obtained via in-person versus remote administrations, and none of them have researched a symptom validity test (SVT). To contribut...

A recently published article harshly criticized forensic practitioners operating in Slovenia for not including in their assessments any tests specifically designed to assess negative distortion (Areh, 2020). To promote better forensic assessment practice and stimulate future research on symptom and performance validity assessment in Slovenia, the c...

Evaluating the credibility of the respondent’s cognitive and psychological complaints is a core component of forensic mental health assessment. The Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29) and a new IOP-Memory module (IOP-M) are designed specifically for that purpose. Initial research suggests that they might provide practitioners with a quick and thus po...

This study was designed to examine the relative contribution of symptom (SVT) and performance validity tests (PVTs) to the evaluation of the credibility of neuropsychological profiles in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). An archival sample of 326 patients with mTBI was divided into four psychometrically defined criterion groups: pass both SVT and...

The Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29) is a recently introduced free-standing symptom validity test (SVT) with a rapidly growing evidence base. Its classification accuracy compares favorably with that of the widely utilized Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomology (SIMS), and it provides incremental validity when used in combination with othe...

This study was designed to investigate the potential of extreme scores on the Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult Self-Report Version (BRIEF-A-SR) to serve as validity indicators. The BRIEF-A-SR was administered to 73 university students and 50 clinically referred adults. In the student sample, symptom validity was operationaliz...

We investigated the classification accuracy of the Inventory of Problems − 29 (IOP-29), its newly developed memory module (IOP-M) and the Fifteen Item Test (FIT) in an Australian community sample (N = 275). One third of the participants (n = 93) were asked to respond honestly, two thirds were instructed to feign mild TBI. Half of the feigners (n =...

Form Quality (FQ) scores are well-validated measures of the accuracy of perceptive processes, of reality testing, and of the severity of psychological disturbance. Research studies reveal that inter-rater reliability of FQ scoring is good when visualized objects are available in the FQ tables. However, many visualized objects are not found in the F...

Recently, an eye-tracking study found that Complexity and other R-PAS variables located in the Engagement and Cognitive Processing domain correlated with a proxy marker for cognitive effort and engagement. The goal of the current study was to test the robustness and validity of those eye-tracking findings by inspecting fMRI data. We hypothesized th...

A growing literature indicates that to evaluate the credibility of a clinical presentation it would be optimal to rely on multiple sources of information, and use both symptom validity tests (SVTs) and performance validity tests (PVTs) whenever possible. In this paper, we present the development and initial validation of a PVT module designed to be...

Rumination is described as the propensity of responding to distress by repetitively and passively focusing on one’s negative emotions, and failures, and their consequences (Nolen‐Hoeksema, 1991, 1998). Therefore, given that rumination is characterized especially by difficulties in managing and controlling negative emotional states, it is considered...

Research consistently demonstrates that one’s quality of life is enhanced by serving as a volunteer. For older adults, volunteering provides opportunities to stay active after retirement. Senior volunteers tend to live longer, healthier, and happier lives than seniors who do not volunteer. Police departments provide vibrant volunteer opportunities...

Compared to other Western countries, malingering research is still relatively scarce in the United Kingdom, partly because only a few brief and easy-to-use symptom validity tests (SVTs) have been validated for use with British test-takers. This online study examined the validity of the Inventory of Problems–29 (IOP–29) in detecting feigned schizoph...

First responders experience a myriad of stressors (e.g., operational, organizational, personal) over the course of their career. An abundance of empirical evidence shows that the impact of those stressors on first responders’ health, well-being, and performance can be detrimental. Nevertheless, previous research has mainly focused on the role of a...

The Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29; Viglione, Giromini, & Landis, Journal of Personality Assessment, 99(5), 534–544, 2017) is a 29-item, recently published, self-administered test aimed at assessing the credibility of various symptom presentations. Although available research strongly supports the use of this symptom validity test in malingering-...

This article contributes to the growing research on the validity of the recently developed, Inventory of Problems – 29 (IOP-29) in the discrimination of feigned from bona fide mental or cognitive disorders. Specifically, we first developed a Lithuanian version of the IOP-29 and tested its validity on a sample of 50 depressed patients and 50 healthy...

The rubber hand illusion paradigm allows investigating human body ownership by inducing an illusion of owning a life-sized fake hand. Despite the wide consensus on the fact that integration of multisensory signals is the main interpretative framework of the rubber hand illusion, increasing amount of data show that additional factors might contribut...

To date, the MMPI-based, rare-symptom detection strategy is considered one of the most effective ones in symptom validity assessment. Because many of the items of the Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29) were designed specifically to provide incremental validity over the MMPI F scales, this study tested whether using the IOP-29 in combination with the...

The chapter introduces the HEROES Project, an online training resource that develops mental resilience. The goal is to provide the reader with insight into a resource that can be used as an adjunct to employee assistance programs, critical incident stress debriefing, and counseling. The HEROES Project is the first virtual training course that combi...

We introduce the concept of “neurobiological foundation” of Rorschach interpretations as an extension of the concept of behavioral representation as a foundation for interpretation of R‐PAS variables. Here, we propose that if there is a parallelism between the mental, verbal and perceptual behaviors occurring within the microcosm of the Rorschach t...

Based on cross-sectional research linking poor reflective functionining (RF) to eating disorders, the current follow-up study tested whether maternal RF would explain the variance of mothers' and children's weight beyond the effects of maternal emotional dysregulation. During pregnancy (Time 1 [T1]), 51 women were administered the Difficulties in E...

Self-reports could be affected by 2 primary sources of distortion: content-related (CRD) and content-unrelated (CUD) distortions. CRD and CUD, however, might covary, and similar detection strategies have been used to capture both. Thus, we hypothesized that a scale developed to detect random responding—arguably, one of the most evident examples of...

Internationally, the most widely used self-report instrument to assess alexithymia (a clinical condition characterized by serious deficits in the cognitive processing of emotions) is the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Because this measure has been poorly investigated in Brazil and emerging research suggests that TAS-20 scores might vary from o...

By using the Rorschach test, self-reports, and psychophysiological measures, we investigated thoroughly the psychological functioning in a hyperhidrotic case. Erica, a young female with hyperhidrosis, was assessed in three times at one-week distance. First, specific tools assessing potential psychological and affective distress, and the Rorschach t...

This study investigated whether complexity and the other related Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) variables in the engagement and cognitive processing domain would associate with eye-tracking measures reflecting increased cognitive engagement and effort while visually scanning the Rorschach inkblots. A nonclinical sample of 71 adult...

This study tested whether combining the Inventory of Problems – 29 (IOP-29) with the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) would increase sensitivity in the detection of experimentally feigned mental health problems, compared to using either test alone. Additionally, it also evaluated (a) the effects of administration order of these two tests and (b) t...

The Inventory of Problems–29 (IOP–29) is a newly developed, self-administered test designed to assist practitioners evaluating the credibility of various symptom presentations. In a recent simulation study comparing real patients against experimental feigners, its classification accuracy compared favorably with that of the Structured Inventory of M...

The Inventory of Problems–29 (IOP-29) was recently introduced as a brief, easy-to-use measure of non-credible mental and cognitive symptoms that may be applied to a wide variety of contexts or clinical conditions. The current study compared its validity in discriminating bona fide versus feigned (via experimental malingering paradigm) psychopatholo...

This article introduces the Inventory of Problems (IOP)—a new, computerized, 181-item tool designed to discriminate bona fide from feigned mental illness and cognitive impairment—and presents the development and validation of its focal, feigning scale, the False Disorder Score (IOP–FDS). The initial sample included (a) 211 patients and 64 offenders...

The Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) is a performance-based personality assessment instrument used in both clinical and research settings worldwide. This investigation examines response-level, interrater reliability of U.S. graduate students enrolled in the same doctoral program and divided into two unique participant groups: 20 of those with previou...

Emotion Regulation (ER) is an important aspect of every-day behavior relevant to both clinical and diagnostic practice. To date several studies have investigated the psychometric properties of Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz and Roemer 2004) scores, however, the extent to which the DERS is affected by the gender and/or age of...

Recent research suggests that attributing human movement to ambiguous and static Rorschach stimuli (M responses) is associated with EEG mu suppression, and that disrupting the left inferior gyrus (LIFG; a putative area implicated in mirroring activity) decreases the tendency to see human movement when exposed to the Rorschach ambiguous stimuli. The...