Word-Recognition Validity Test
A short two-choice recognition task, ~4 minutes. It checks whether a set of memory results looks credible — not how strong your memory is. Administered by a clinician or researcher through an assigned assessment link.
What this test is
Welcome. The Word-Recognition Validity Test checks whether a set of memory results looks credible. It does not measure how strong your memory is.
How would you like to use it?
For researchers
Sign up as an Implicitify researcher to use the full suite of measures in your studies, or pay for each test you give. Research pricing is still being set, so we will confirm it with you when you get in touch.
Become a researcherFor clinicians
Open a clinician account to send this measure to your clients or patients through a secure link and review their scored results in one place.
Create a clinician accountAlready have an account? Go to your clinician dashboard.For educators
Use our measures in your courses to show students how psychological assessment works and to teach the principles of testing.
Request course accessHow it works
Learning
You study a short list of common, concrete words shown one at a time. They are easy to remember, so genuine effort — even alongside real memory difficulty — recognises them well above chance.
Recognition
Each learned word is shown next to an unrelated, length-matched distractor. You choose the word you saw. With two options per item, pure guessing averages 50%.
Reading
Scoring significantly below chance is strong evidence of non-credible responding. The report also checks whether effort stayed consistent across the task. Indicative, not diagnostic.
Common questions
What does this test actually measure?
Performance validity, not memory ability. It asks a narrower question than a memory test: do these results reflect real effort? Because the target words are easy and each item has only two options, honest responders score very high — so a genuinely low or below-chance score is informative about effort, not memory strength.
What does "below chance" mean?
On a two-choice test, guessing alone averages 50% correct. Scoring far enough below 50% that it is statistically unlikely by chance (an exact one-tailed binomial test) is difficult to explain by any known memory disorder — it usually means the correct answer was recognised and deliberately avoided. That is the strongest single signal this task provides.
Does a single score decide the result?
No. This check looks at whether effort stayed consistent across the task. The result should be weighed alongside other indicators — never used in isolation to reach a conclusion.
How is the task administered?
Through the clinician and researcher portals: administration and scored reports go through an assigned assessment link, and there is no charge to the respondent. The sample report is available to clinician accounts.
Can it be repeated?
It can be repeated through a new assessment link, but recognition is easy to relearn, so the first administration is the most informative. Treat one run as descriptive of that session rather than a fixed conclusion.