ABSTRACT

The traditional perspective of validation processes based on three kinds of strategies, for the study of content, criterion and construct validities. This approach is incomplete as the meaning of test score validity is linked to validation of inferences or hypothesis testing. Such a view produce a change toward an unified concept of validity which integrates considerations of criterion and content into a construct frame for the empirical testing of rational hypotheses about score meaning. This conceptual advancement is discussed particularly with reference to cognitive inhibition as an explanatory construct for attentional selectivity. The status of inhibition in selective attention is presented using as a framework behavioral evidences obtained in a negative priming paradigm.

KEYWORDS: validity, cognitive inhibition , negative priming