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Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (CPT)

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Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology

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The Conners Continuous Performance Test - 2 (CPT-2; Conners, 2000) is a computer administered test that is designed to assess problems with attention. The Conners CPT-2 presents 360 stimuli trials (i.e., individual letters) on the screen, with 1, 2, or 4 s between the presentation of letters (ISI: Inter-Stimulus Interval). The 360 trials are divided into 18 blocks of 20 trials each. The ISIs are counterbalanced across these blocks. Respondents are instructed to press the spacebar or the appropriate key on the mouse for any letter that appears, except the letter “X.” The CPT takes fourteen min to administer excluding the recommended practice test. Over the duration of the test, 324 non-X stimuli (i.e., targets) appear, and the letter “X” (nontarget) appears 36 times. One of the primary advantages of this paradigm is the high proportion of targets that appear, yielding a larger pool of responses for generating the statistical output. Many statistics are computed including...

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References and Readings

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Conners, C.K., Sitarenios, G. (2011). Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (CPT). In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_1535

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_1535

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-79947-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-79948-3

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