False negatives, Canter's Background Interference Procedure, the trail making test, and epileptics.

This study correlated the Canter's Background Interference Procedure (BIP) scores of 141 adult epileptics with the five variables of age at onset of symptoms, etiology, type of symptoms, severity of generalized background dysrhythmia, and locus of lesion. These variables did not correlate significantly with the BIP scores, contrary to expectations. The BIP's nearly 50% false negative rate was much higher than that of the Trail Making Test, using either Reitan's or Russell's cutting scores for Trails A (33% and 21%, respectively) or Trails B (35% and 28.5%, respectively). The BIP often does not agree with abnormal neurological diagnoses, but often does agree with psychiatric diagnoses of Organic Brain Syndrome (OBS). The authors argue that this is due to the BIP's normative history and to its sensitivity to organic concreteness. The authors suggest that future BIP validity studies include a behavioral measure of OBS as criterion.