Virtual Reality (VR) Technology Monitors Executive Functioning

Virtual reality (VR) technology may help assess individuals’ daily life tasks in real-world settings who struggle with executive functioning.

Virtual reality has greatly attracted the gaming industry but apart from it, virtual reality (VR) can also be used by researchers to assess individuals’ attention, memory, and problem-solving abilities in real world settings.

With the advent of VR technology, daily life tasks can be examined in clinical populations that struggle with executive functioning, as per a study at Center for BrainHealth®, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior Reports.

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‘With the advent of Virtual reality (VR) technology, daily life tasks like individuals’ attention, memory, and problem-solving abilities in real world settings can be examined in clinical populations that struggle with executive functioning. Thus incorporating the VR technology to create an executive function assessment in neuropsychology may aid in understanding people who suffer from executive function impairments and design proper management strategies.’

The study team allowed 42 healthy adult college students as participants to make a grocery list (everyday task) by comparing ingredients in kitchen cabinets to a list of recipes that they were asked to memorize. The task was followed by a venture to the grocery store. This would help monitor the participants' daily working memory and performance accurately using the Virtual Reality Functional Capacity Assessment Tool's (VRFCAT) "kitchen test".

Virtual Reality Technology in Neuropsychology

With the increase in the number of ingredients and recipes to be memorized, the participants took longer time to complete their grocery lists. This supports the fact that task performance decreases as the functional load increases. The concept can effectively test the executive functional load using this VR assessment tool.

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It was also found that participants' working memories were not related to how well they performed the task. "People might spend the same amount of time on the task, and make the same number of errors, but they could have different working memory capacities," says the lead author Zhengsi Chang, a Ph.D. student who works in the lab at the Center for BrainHealth®.

As the team further analyzed the participants, it was seen that switching up of their strategies upsurged with the increase in executive functional load, explaining why no links were seen between the performance and participants' working memory.

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That is, the participants frequently switched between rummaging through the kitchen cabinets and examining the recipe list while others were trying to memorize much of the ingredients possible before seeing the recipe.

"This study indicates that our strategies have a dramatic effect on our capacity. If you enter into a task prepared with a plan, you will get the most out of your brain and see much better performance," says Daniel Krawczyk, Ph.D., deputy director of the Center for BrainHealth®.

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Thus the participants' performance reflects their executive function. Incorporating the VR technology to create an executive function assessment in neuropsychology may help understand people who suffer from executive function impairments and design better management strategies.

Source-Medindia