The Effects of Culture on WASI Test Performance in Ethnically Diverse Individuals
Abstract
The objective of this study was to examine differences between fluent English-speaking ethnically diverse (ED) individuals (from Hispanic, Asian, and Middle-Eastern descent) and monolingual English-speaking Anglo-Americans (MEAA) on the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI). A sample of 86 (50 ED and 36 MEAA) healthy individuals participated. The results revealed that the MEAA group outperformed the ED group on the verbal (i.e., Vocabulary and Similarities), but not the nonverbal (i.e., Block Design and Matrix Reasoning) subtests. Various cultural factors such as the level of acculturation and the degree to which the English language was used correlated with verbal skills. Number of years the education was obtained outide of the US was an important predictor of verbal and some nonverbal performance in the ED group. The findings from this study underscore the importance of taking cultural factors, particularly level of acculturation, into account when interpreting test scores of ED individuals.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The greater proneness of ethnic differences on verbal tasks suggests environmental factors contribute to differences.
“suggesting environmental factors contribute to differences (Razani et al., 2007).”
From Factors Related to Mean Score Group Differences on Cognitive Ability Tests: A Systematic Review (2025) · cites this paper as Razani et al., 2007
Ethnic differences on cognitive domains were more pronounced on verbal tasks.
“Ethnic differences on cognitive domains were more pronounced on verbal tasks”
From Factors Related to Mean Score Group Differences on Cognitive Ability Tests: A Systematic Review (2025) · cites this paper as Razani et al., 2007
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Boone, K., Victor, T. L., Wen, J., Razani, J., & Pontón, M. (2007) · Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology · doi:10.1016/j.acn.2007.01.010 · Cited by 317 · see citing works
Self-citationCross-Cultural Applicability of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA): A Systematic Review
O'Driscoll, C., & Shaikh, M. (2017) · Journal of Alzheimer's Disease · doi:10.3233/jad-161042 · Cited by 195 · see citing works
Razani, J., Burciaga, J., Madore, M., & Wong, J. (2007) · Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology · doi:10.1016/j.acn.2007.01.008 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
Self-citationShuttleworth-Edwards, A. (2016) · Clinical Neuropsychologist · doi:10.1080/13854046.2016.1204011 · Cited by 77 · see citing works
Reward and punishment reversal-learning in major depressive disorder.
Mukherjee, D., Filipowicz, A., Vo, K., Satterthwaite, T., & Kable, J. W. (2020) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.31234/osf.io/aqgx3 · Cited by 69
The effects of acculturation on neuropsychological test performance: A systematic literature review
Tan, Y.-W., Burgess, G. H., & Green, R. (2020) · Clinical Neuropsychologist · doi:10.1080/13854046.2020.1714740 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
Walker, A., Batchelor, J., & Shores, A. (2009) · Australian Psychologist · doi:10.1080/00050060902833469 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Buré-Reyes, A., Hidalgo-Ruzzante, N., Vilar-López, R., Gontier, J., Sánchez, L., Pérez-García, M., & Puente, A. (2013) · Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology · doi:10.1080/13803395.2013.778232 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“…& Puente, 2007; Razani et al., 2007), abstract reasoning (Manly et al., 2002; Touradji, Manly, Jacobs, & Stern, 2001), inhibition (Razani et al., 2007), intelligence (Razani et al., 2006), and category fluency (Kempler, Teng, Dick, Taussig, & Davis, 1998; Manly et al., 2002; Touradji et al., 2001).”
BackgroundNeuropsychological Assessment of HIV-Infected Populations in International Settings
Robertson, K., Liner, J. L., & Heaton, R. (2009) · Neuropsychology Review · doi:10.1007/s11065-009-9096-z · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“On the other hand, similarities in performance on tests of non-verbal skills (Hsieh and Tori 2007; Razani et al. 2007b), simple reaction time (Anger et al. 1993), simple attention (Paul et al. 2007), visual retention (Anger et al. 1993), counting and summation (Hsieh and Tori 2007), visuo-spatial…”
BackgroundCockcroft, K., Alloway, T., Copello, E., & Milligan, R. (2015) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00297 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
“Given previous evidence, it was unsurprising that the verbal subtests showed the highest degree of cultural difference (Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004; Razani et al., 2006).”
BackgroundInfluentialThe 15-item version of the Boston Naming Test as an index of English proficiency
Erdodi, L. A., Jongsma, K., & Issa, M. (2017) · Clinical Neuropsychologist · doi:10.1080/13854046.2016.1224392 · Cited by 39
“Indeed, previous research found a significant correlation between education and symbol substitution scores (Razani et al., 2007a), although in general, level of education appears to have a stronger relationship with verbal than non-verbal skills (Heaton, Ryan, & Grant, 2009; Razani et al., 2007b).”
BackgroundNielsen, T. R., Franzen, S., Watermeyer, T., Jiang, J., Calia, C., Kjærgaard, D., Bothe, S., & Mukadam, N. (2024) · Clinical Neuropsychologist · doi:10.1080/13854046.2024.2335113 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
“Level of acculturation has been shown to have both direct and indirect influences on performances across several neuropsychological tests (Al-Jawahiri & Nielsen, 2020; Razani et al., 2007a, 2007b).”
Neuropsychological Assessment of Culturally and Educationally Dissimilar Individuals
Puente, A., Pérez-García, M., López, R., Hidalgo-Ruzzante, N., & Fasfous, A. F. (2013) · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-394420-7.00012-6 · Cited by 28
“Although most of this evidence appears anecdotal and clinical in nature, there is a growing body of data suggesting differences in intelligence (Kaufman, 2009; Puente & Salazar, 1998; Razani et al., 2006; Touradji, Manly, Jacobs, & Stern, 2001), attention (Byrd, Touradji, Tang, & Manly, 2004), visuoperceptive abilitie…”
Ott, S., Schatz, P., Solomon, G., & Ryan, J. J. (2014) · Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology · doi:10.1093/arclin/act091 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Ali, S., Elliott, L., Biss, R., Abumeeiz, M., Brantuo, M., Kuzmenka, P., Odenigbo, P., & Erdodi, L. A. (2020) · Applied neuropsychology. Adult · doi:10.1080/23279095.2020.1760277 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
“Given the underperformance of AR compared to EN across tests and contrasts in this and previous studies (Boone et al., 2007; Coffey et al., 2005; Gasquoine et al., 2007; Razani et al., 2007)), LEP may be associated with a global deficit in the efficiency of information processing.”
BackgroundResultMedina, L. D., Henry, S., Torres, S., MacDonald, B., & Strutt, A. (2023) · Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology · doi:10.1093/arclin/acac114 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Al-Jawahiri, F., & Nielsen, T. R. (2020) · Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology · doi:10.1093/arclin/acz083 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Cultural Diversity in Neuropsychological Assessment
Irani, F., & Byrd, D. (2022) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781003051862 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Krch, D., Lequerica, A., Arango-Lasprilla, J., Rogers, H., DeLuca, J., & Chiaravalloti, N. (2015) · Clinical Neuropsychologist · doi:10.1080/13854046.2015.1063696 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Burke, S., Naseh, M., Rodriguez, M. J., Burgess, A., & Loewenstein, D. (2019) · Psychology and Neuroscience · doi:10.1037/pne0000163 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Fairness in psychological testing
Melikyan, Z. A., Agranovich, A. V., & Puente, A. E. (2019) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-802203-0.00018-3 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Gálvez-Lara, M., Moriana, J. A., Vilar-López, R., Fasfous, A. F., Hidalgo-Ruzzante, N., & Pérez-García, M. (2015) · Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology · doi:10.1080/13803395.2014.1003533 · Cited by 14
Gilderthorp, R. C., Burns, J., & Jones, F. (2018) · Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology · doi:10.1123/jcsp.2017-0018 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Ali, S., Brantuo, M., Cutler, L., Kennedy, A., & Erdodi, L. A. (2022) · Applied neuropsychology. Child · doi:10.1080/21622965.2022.2034628 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“…reports of focal weakness on verbally mediated tests among examinees with LEP relative to NSE in general (Ali et al., 2020; Erdodi et al., 2017; Razani et al., 2007; 2007; Schroeder & Marshall, 2010; Stålhammar et al., 2020), and auditory verbal learning test specifically (Finlay et al., 2010).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialTan, Y.-W., & Burgess, G. H. (2018) · Culture and Brain · doi:10.1007/s40167-018-0075-1 · Cited by 11
Eizaguirre, M., Vanotti, S., Aguayo-Arelis, A., Barajas, B. R. R., Cores, E., Macías, M., Benedict, R., & Cáceres, F. (2020) · Developmental Neuropsychology · doi:10.1080/87565641.2020.1737699 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“…as mentioned in previous works, the number of years of formal schooling may not be an adequate measure of the quality of education, and may be affecting the differences observed in the processing speed task (Fyffe et al., 2011; Manly, Jacobs, Touradji, Small, & Stern, 2002; Razani et al., 2007).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialChafetz, M., Sweet, J., Boone, K. B., Cox, D., Hall, V. L., Kirkwood, M. W., Lafosse, J. M., Merten, T., & Oldenburg, C. (2025) · Clinical Neuropsychologist · doi:10.1080/13854046.2025.2461750 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“…analysis of the case, such as level of acculturation, level of bilingualism, and both years and quality of education obtained outside the country in which the exam is conducted, and to recognize that cultural issues exist distinct from language concerns (Razani et al., 2007; Razani et al., 2007).”
Peviani, V., Scarpa, P., Toraldo, A., & Bottini, G. (2016) · Epilepsy & Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2016.09.011 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“Anyhow, our provisional conclusion, consistent with some previous studies [15,18,19], is that YI alone is not likely to give an accurate representation of the extent of acculturation; more refined statistics are required.”
BackgroundResultCultural Aspects in Assessing Malingering Detection
Braw, Y. (2021) · Detection of Malingering during Head Injury Litigation · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-54656-4_3 · Cited by 5
IQ Testing and the Asian-American Client
Thaler, N. S., Kang, J. Y., & Reger, S. L. (2014) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-0796-0_10 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Marotta, J., Aggarwal, S., Osayande, N., Saltoun, K., Kopál, J., Holmes, A. J., Yip, S. W., & Bzdok, D. (2025) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0327729 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“It is important to highlight that certain cognitive assessments utilized have previously exhibited cultural biases in scores, stemming from the Eurocentric nature of metrics [91,92], which could have impacted the observed race and ethnicity related associations.”
Morris, E., Byrd, D., Summers, A., Tureson, K., Guzman, V. A., Crook, C., & Mindt, M. R. (2020) · Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society · doi:10.1017/s1355617720000855 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Gadd, C., & Phipps, W. D. (2012) · South African Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1177/008124631204200311 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“This stems from studies that have found discrepancies in the performance of different racial and cultural groups on neuropsychological tests (Baker et al., 2010; Makhele, 2005; Razani et al., 2006; Roselli & Ardila, 2003).”
ResultSimilarities and Differences in the WAIS-IV Performances in Korean and U.S. Populations.
Lee, D. D., Ryu, K.-H., & Ahn, S. (2024) · Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology · doi:10.1093/arclin/acae086 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
The Acehnese Language Use in South Aceh Regency: A Sociolinguistic Analysis
Zulkhairi, Z., Zulhelmi, A., Azhari, A., Sumardi, S., & Shaliha, C. A. A. (2024) · Buletin Al-Turas · doi:10.15408/bat.v30i1.34246 · Cited by 3
“Acculturation is a powerful predictor of vocabulary and similarity performance in engineering or ethnic groups (Razani et al., 2007).”
BackgroundStaios, M., Kosmidis, M., Tsiaras, Y., Nielsen, T. R., Papadopoulos, A., Kokkinias, A., Velakoulis, D., March, E., & Stolwyk, R. (2023) · Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society · doi:10.1017/s1355617723000504 · Cited by 3
“In light of previous research findings, it was not surprising that the use of nonrepresentative normative data resulted in high impairment rates on verbal subtests given the level of education observed within the present sample (Razani et al., 2007; Shuttleworth-Edwards et al., 2004).”
Gentry, M. T., Rummans, T., & Lucas, J. (2021) · International Psychogeriatrics · doi:10.1017/s1041610220000435 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“Bilingualism, ESL, and level of acculturation have been associated with lower performance on neuropsychological tests (Boone et al., 2007; Razani et al., 2007).”
BackgroundRacial and Ethnic Group Differences in Intelligence in the United States
Suzuki, L. A., Short, E. L., & Lee, C. S. (2011) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511977244.015 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
IQ Testing and the Hispanic Client
Thaler, N. S., & Jones-Forrester, S. (2012) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-4412-1_6 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Boone, K. B., Kaufmann, P. M., Sweet, J. J., Leatherberry, D., Beattey, R. A., Silva, D., Victor, T. L., Boone, R. P., Spector, J., Hebben, N., et al. (2024) · Clinical Neuropsychologist · doi:10.1080/13854046.2024.2323222 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Rather than relying solely on test manuals, neuropsychologists keep abreast of peer-reviewed literature that guides interpretation of the vocabulary test scores, such as consideration of the impact of English-as-a-second language status on ability to define vocabulary items in English (Razani et al., 2007).”
BackgroundInfluentialBurke, S., Burgess, A., & Cadet, T. (2019) · Dementia · doi:10.1177/1471301217739095 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Erdodi, L. A., Nussbaum, S., Sagar, S., Abeare, C. A., & Schwartz, E. (2017) · Psychological Injury and Law · doi:10.1007/s12207-017-9282-x · Cited by 1
“Razani et al. (2007) reported a significant difference with large effect between their NSE and LEP samples on verbal IQ, but no difference on performance IQ or even full scale IQ.”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialUnderstanding Differences in Cognition Across the Lifespan: Comparing Eastern and Western Cultures
Zaroff, C., D'Amato, R., & Bender, H. (2014) · Issues of diversity in clinical neuropsychology. · doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-8075-4_6 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Factors Related to Mean Score Group Differences on Cognitive Ability Tests: A Systematic Review
Cuppello, S., Zibarras, L. D., & Corr, P. J. (2025) · Trends in Psychology · doi:10.1007/s43076-025-00504-5
Robotham, R., Larsen, F., Carlsen, I. T., Ibrahim, M., & Nielsen, T. R. (2026) · Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society · doi:10.1017/s1355617726102045
“These findings are consistent with previous studies in bilingual samples using similar Wechsler tests (Ardila et al., 2019; Hasson et al., 2019; Razani, Murcia, et al., 2007; Staios, Kosmidis, Tsiaras, et al., 2023) but the magnitude of variation from the expected scores was unexpected and,…”
InfluentialAghvinian, M., Huang, Q., Oleas, D. S., Breen, E., Slaughter, A. W., Zhu, D., Cham, H., Arentoft, A., Zimmerman, M. E., & Mindt, M. G. R. (2025) · Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society · doi:10.1017/s1355617725101264
“…language, attention/working memory, processing speed), and performance differences substantially decrease after adjusting for demographic (e.g., age, education) and sociocultural factors such as acculturation (Arentoft et al., 2012; Arnold et al., 1994; Manly et al., 2004; Razani et al., 2007a).”
InfluentialRibeiro, R. G., Fichman, H. C., Fernandes, C., & Sil, F. M. B. N. (2025) · Debates em Psiquiatria · doi:10.25118/2763-9037.2025.v15.1449
McElwee, C., & Hernandez, D. W. L. (2024) · Applied neuropsychology. Adult · doi:10.1080/23279095.2024.2323630
“…test performance (Arnold et al., 1994; Baird et al., 2007; Bialystok, 2017; Bialystok et al., 2009; Blair et al., 2011; Boone et al., 2007; Coffey et al., 2005; Farah et al., 2006; Harris et al., 2003; Manly et al., 1998b; Manly, 2005; Manly & Jacobs, 2002; Razani et al., 2007; Saez et al., 2014).”
Morales-Ortiz, M., & Peña-Cardenas, F. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02687
“, 2016), since several studies have shown the effect of culture and ethnicity on the results of neuropsychological tests, with participants of non-English-speaking origin, and those of Spanish-speaking origin in particular, performing worst (Acevedo et al., 2000; Boone et al., 2007; Razani et al., 2007; Saez et al., 2…”
BackgroundRekrutierung von Studienteilnehmern
Pauly, K., & Habel, U. (2013) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-29800-4_7
- Authors
- Razani, J., Murcia, G., Tabares, J., & Wong, J.
- Affiliations
- California State University, Northridge (US)
- Corresponding author
- Razani, Jill
- Venue
- The Clinical Neuropsychologist
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2007-08-20
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 776-788
- ISSN
- 0920-1637 (ISSN-L)
- 1385-4046
- 1744-4144
- OpenAlex
- W2125505246
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 2.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Clinical Neuropsychologist (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R24MH067851, MH067851-01)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM63787, GM08395, T34GM008395, R25GM063787)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Historical and Modern Theater Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Keywords
- WASI, acculturation, language fluency, immigrant education, test score interpretation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Cognition, Culture, Ethnicity, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
