Although CTT has served test development well over several decades, Item Response Theory (IRT) has rapidly become mainstream as the theoretical basis for measurement [ 12].
Unexpectedly, participants committed significantly more errors in between-decade items (7.9%) than in within-decade items (3.9%).
However, while neglect patients responded 338 ms faster for within-decade comparisons, control patients showed an opposing pattern: between-decade items were responded to 15 ms faster than within-decade items.
Neglect patients committed 16.6% errors in between-decade items and only 8.8% in within-decade items Importantly, the Jonckheere-Terpstra test revealed the difference between within/between-decade comparisons to differ significantly across participant groups (p < .05).05
In particular, neglect patients responded 342 ms faster on average in within-decade items as compared to between-decade items, while this pattern was reversed for the patient control group (152 ms).
In the study by Hoeckner et al., [ 17] the number bisection task revealed strong differences between within- and between-decade items in neglect patients.
The Jonckheere-Terpstra test on the comparison of within/between-decade items did not indicate a significant monotone trend in group medians for zRT (p = .47).47
Second, we also expected specific differences for neglect patients when comparing the processing of selected within- and between-decade items with numerical distance held constant.
Faster processing of within- as compared to between-decade items (with numerical distance held constant) and an enhanced unit-decade compatibility effect indexed more intense processing of the rightward unit digit within the object of a two-digit number.
If this would have been the case, then the difference between neglect patients and controls should diminish for within-decade items (assuming that demands on working memory are lower for these items).
Importantly, these results were substantiated by parametric testing as reported in Appendix B. We hypothesized that there might be specific differences in the performance of neglect patients when comparing between- and within-decade items.
