The technique of latency-weighted testing measures the latencies (the time-elapse between the moment of stimulation and the beginning of response) in subjects making responses to diagnostic personality items.
Fifty-one mental patients of a variety of psychiatric categories of the Clarksburg Veterans Hospital were administered 36 "critical items" of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). The purpose was to identify objectively and automatically subjects "blocking," if any, on each item, in terms of scores ranging 1 to 6, being the range from lowest to highest "blocking." Each subject was instructed to rest his finger lightly on a button. After hearing and grasping the meaning of an item, he pushed the button and released it immediately. This "dwelling-time" (length of button-press) was automatically recorded by a reaction-time clock. After releasing the button, subject stated "yes" for agreement or "no" for disagreement with the item heard.
Underlying the scoring system was the rationale that threatening stimulus items provoke longer-than-neutral, and appealing stimuli, shorter-than-neutral dwelling-times.
A validation based on the correlation between independent clinical ratings and the latency-weighted scores resulted in the coefficient of +.61, significant beyond the 0.001 level.
A "t" test between total latency-weighted scores of groups found independently high and low was 3.434, significant beyond the 0.001 level.
The latency-weighted scores on specific critical MMPI items identified specific areas where mental patients were relatively intact (scores 1 & 2), as over against areas where they needed treatment (scores 5 & 6) .