Cognitive assessment of toxicity: the Automated Cognitive Test (ACT) system

Environmental exposure to neurotoxic chemical agents is a world-wide public health concern and an accepted source of work related disease. Indeed, in the United States of America there are in excess of 60000 chemicals in current use, at least 750 of which have been reported to have adverse effects on the nervous system (Centres for Disease Control, 1986). It has been estimated that in excess of one million US workers are potentially exposed to many of these chemicals (Anger, 1986) and it seems likely that several million workers can also be expected to be at risk in the European Community (Gilioli, 1993). This paper provides a sketch of the context in which neurotoxicological work takes place, the advantages of computerised assessments in this area, the need for cognitive theory to play a more central role in the assessment process, and the development and content of a multipurpose computerised test system to meet these needs: the Automated Cognitive Test (ACT) system