3. There is a need for more international involvement with both journals and colleagues. This will help us to not be so isolated and will stimulate creativeness. It will also give us a stronger feeling of being a part of the world community that seeks answers to the exciting questions regarding brain-mind interactions. It will also hopefully lead to a better treatment of those suffering from the adaptive disorders resulting from neurologic disease.

References

Rose S. (1990), Improving cooperation between east and west europe in neuroscience, Trends in Neurosciences, 8: 319-320.

Neuropsychology from a Cross- Cultural Perspective

5000 LE Tilburg, Ile Netherlands Email: fons.vandevijver@kub.ni

If we take the inauguration of the first journals that publish mainly or exclusively cross-cultural manuscripts according to their masthead policy as the starting point of cross-cultural psychology (i.e., the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology and the International Journal of Psycholoov), cross-cultural psychology is about 30 years old. Especially during the last decade we see a steady increase of the number of publications that involve cultural comparisons on psychological variables.

The increased interest in cross-cultural psychology is fueled by important societal changes of the last decades: globalization and multiculturalization. Societies with a culturally relatively homogenous historical background are becoming multicultural. Good examples are the Western-European countries. There are serious and reasonable doubts as to whether the migrants that have come to these countries during the last decades will have an assimilationist perspective (i.e., lose their original culture to become fully adapted to their new countries). Similarly, there is growing awareness in the United States that newly established groups will not all assimilate and become mainstream US citizens. As a consequence, neuropsychologists, like many other professionals, face the challenge of catering to a culturally heterogeneous client population (Ardila, 1995).

The interesting aspect of working in a multicultural population is the need to question what is often taken for granted in multi-cultural research. Some examples are: Can a particular test be used in a certain cultural group? Can the test be administered in the standard language? If not, are there alternative instruments? Is the stimulus material culturally appropriate? Can test success be compared across cultures? Can I use norm scores obtained among mainstream subjects for other cultural groups? How can I take the acculturation process of a client into account? All these questions refer to assessment. Obviously; similar questions of applicability, cultural appropriateness, and generalization of findings obtained with other cultural groups refer to counseling, guidance, treatment, and other professional psychological activities.

A major issue in cross-cultural assessment and testing is the applicability of instruments Can an instrument be used in a particular group? Differential appropriateness of an instrument is known as bias, it means that test scores do not have the same meaning across cultural groups. 'Mere are three types of bias (Van de Vijve:- & Leuiig, 1997a,b).

Construct bias, the first type, will be observed when behaviors associated with a construct are not identical across cultural groups. For example, suppose that one wants to assess "ether after a brain trauma a patient still has sufficient skills to live on his or her own. The behaviors needed for self-sufficiency will vary across cultural contexts and are influenced by factors like housing conditions, availability of material, and immaterial resources. Without a thorough knowledge of the particular culture or a study of the appropriateness of an instrument it "I be difficult to judge the presence of construct bias.

The second type is method bias. It refers to measurement problems at test level. In a multicultural society the mastery of the testing language (frequently the language of the dominant group) is typically not equally distributed across all cultural groups. Many cognitive tests assume a high degree of mastery of the testing language (even when this mastery is not itself the topic of inquiry). When working in a population that has at least some proficiency in the testing language, a lengthy instruction, including examples and exercises, may help to alleviate the problem. Furthermore, the use of intuitively appealing testing formats (e.g., clearly showing what is being asked from a client) may help. Another potentially important source of individual differences in performances on cognitive tests is familiarity with test stimuli. Previous exposure to psychological tests or similar tasks is known to have a powerful influence on test performance.

In a recently completed meta-analysis of cross-cultural differences in cognitive test performance I found that there is a significant correlation between Gross National Product (or educational expenditure per head) and cognitive test performance. Such a finding has implications for assessment at an individual level. It is another illustration of the well known observation that individual differences within a cultural group and across cultural groups may have an entirely different background. Whereas individual differences of two persons from the same cultural background may refer to the construct measured by the test (e.g., intelligence or memory span), individual differences across cultural groups may refer to differences in educational background, exposure to Western tests, acculturation status, etc. Obviously, the uncritical use of norms of dominant groups for other cultural groups is usually not appropriate.

'The third type is item bias, often referred to as differential item functioning. For example, many instruments use local idiom because it is short and clear. However, such idioms will often be difficult to translate. Examples of such expressions that are difficult to translate are "feeling blue" and distressed (which in many languages can only be expressed as a combination of emotions).

In dealing with migrants, it may seem attractive to use psychological instruments from the country of origin. Unfortunately, such a simple solution is often inadequate. Norms of the country of origin may not apply in the new context. Moreover, such a group of migrants is often heterogeneous from a cultural perspective. Some of them may be fully integrated or assimilated in which case the test norms of the host country apply while others may be culturally very similar to their native country in which case other norms would be required. 'ne use of tests of the original country may also introduce another problem: languages develop and migrants often do not have enough access to their original language to be aware of changing habits in the use of words and expressions. I have come across a few examples in translations of tests from Dutch into Turkish by Turkish-Dutch migrants. When the translation was shown to native Turkish speakers in Turkey, they commented on the usage of somewhat archaic words and expressions in the test. The problem was not comprehensibility but fashion and currently popular ways of expression. Obviously, the use of psychological tests in these groups is a challenging task- that assumes a great deal of knowledge of the cultural background of the client population.

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