A comparison of immersive virtual reality with traditional neuropsychological measures in the assessment of executive functions

Autor: Sylvia Terbeck, Catherine Deeprose, Sophie Melissa Clare Davison
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Acta Neuropsychiatrica. 30:79-89
ISSN: 1601-5215
0924-2708
DOI: 10.1017/neu.2017.14
Popis: ObjectiveThis study investigated immersive virtual reality (IVR), as a novel technique to test executive function of healthy younger and older adults. We predicted IVR tasks to have greater predictive power than traditional measures when assessing age-related cognitive functioning due to the real-world validity of the tasks.MethodsParticipants (n=40) completed the Stroop colour–word test and the trail-making test (TMT) as traditional and commonly used assessments of executive functioning. Participants then completed three IVR tasks; a seating arrangement task, an item location task (both set in a virtual chemistry lab), and a virtual parking simulator.ResultsYounger adults completed significantly more parking simulator levels (ppppConclusionIVR measures (i.e. number of parking simulator levels completed and number of objects placed in the seating arrangement task) were found to be stronger contributors than existing traditional neuropsychological tasks in predicting age-related cognitive decline. Future research should investigate the implementation of these real-world-based tasks in clinical groups given this promising initial work.
Databáze: OpenAIRE