Methods Inf Med 2017; 56(02): 112-116
DOI: 10.3414/ME16-02-0006
Paper
Schattauer GmbH

Eye Movement Analysis and Cognitive Assessment

The Use of Comparative Visual Search Tasks in a Non-immersive VR Application
Pedro J. Rosa
1   ECPV, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal
5   GIINCO – Grupo Internacional de Investigación Neuro-Conductual, Barranquilla, Colombia
,
Pedro Gamito
1   ECPV, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal
2   COPELABS – Cognition and People-centric Computing Laboratories, Lisbon, Portugal
,
Jorge Oliveira
1   ECPV, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal
2   COPELABS – Cognition and People-centric Computing Laboratories, Lisbon, Portugal
,
Diogo Morais
1   ECPV, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal
2   COPELABS – Cognition and People-centric Computing Laboratories, Lisbon, Portugal
,
Matthew Pavlovic
6   University of Michigan, Michigan, USA
,
Olivia Smyth
6   University of Michigan, Michigan, USA
,
Inês Maia
1   ECPV, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal
,
Tiago Gomes
1   ECPV, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

received: 06 March 2016

accepted: 26 October 2016

Publication Date:
25 January 2018 (online)

Preview

Summary

Background: An adequate behavioral response depends on attentional and mnesic processes. When these basic cognitive functions are impaired, the use of non-immersive Virtual Reality Applications (VRAs) can be a reliable technique for assessing the level of impairment. However, most non-immersive VRAs use indirect measures to make inferences about visual attention and mnesic processes (e.g., time to task completion, error rate).

Objectives: To examine whether the eye movement analysis through eye tracking (ET) can be a reliable method to probe more effectively where and how attention is deployed and how it is linked with visual working memory during comparative visual search tasks (CVSTs) in non-immersive VRAs.

Methods: The eye movements of 50 healthy participants were continuously recorded while CVSTs, selected from a set of cognitive tasks in the Systemic Lisbon Battery (SLB). Then a VRA designed to assess of cognitive impairments were randomly presented.

Results: The total fixation duration, the number of visits in the areas of interest and in the interstimulus space, along with the total execution time was significantly different as a function of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores.

Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that CVSTs in SLB, when combined with ET, can be a reliable and unobtrusive method for assessing cognitive abilities in healthy individuals, opening it to potential use in clinical samples.