A Novel Virtual Reality Assessment of Functional Cognition: Validation Study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Cognitive deficits are common in neuropsychiatric disorders like Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and depression.
• Current cognitive assessments are often time-consuming, burdensome, and lack real-world applicability.
• VStore, a virtual reality shopping task, was developed to overcome these limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish the construct validity of VStore against the Cogstate computerized cognitive battery.
• To evaluate VStore's sensitivity to age-related cognitive decline.

Main Methods:

• 142 healthy volunteers (aged 20-79) participated.
• VStore outcomes included item recall, task completion times, and payment processing.
• Regression models analyzed the relationship between VStore performance, Cogstate tasks, age, and technological familiarity.

Main Results:

• VStore performance was best predicted by Cogstate tasks (attention, working memory, paired associate learning), age, and technological familiarity, explaining 47% of variance.
• VStore demonstrated high sensitivity (87%) and specificity (91.7%) in identifying age-related cognitive differences.
• Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed a 94.6% area under the curve for VStore in distinguishing age cohorts.

Conclusions:

• VStore is a promising assessment tool for evaluating cognitive domains.
• The virtual reality task demonstrates significant sensitivity to age-related cognitive decline.
• VStore offers a more ecologically valid alternative to traditional cognitive assessments.