Physiological Psychology, Bielefeld University, P.O, Box 100131, Bielefeld, D-33501, Germany.
J Neuroeng Rehabil. 2013 Apr 23;10:42. doi: 10.1186/1743-0003-10-42.
To increase the ecological validity of neuropsychological instruments the use of virtual reality (VR) applications can be considered as an effective tool in the field of cognitive neurorehabilitation. Despite the growing use of VR programs, only few studies have considered the application of everyday activities like shopping or travelling in VR training devices.
We developed a novel 360°-VR supermarket, which is displayed on a circular arrangement of 8 touch-screens--the "OctaVis". In this setting, healthy human adults had to memorize an auditorily presented shopping list (list A) and subsequently buy all remembered products of this list in the VR supermarket. This procedure was accomplished on three consecutive days. On day four, a new shopping list (list B) was introduced and participants had to memorize and buy only products of this list. On day five, participants had to buy all remembered items of list A again, but without new presentation of list A. Additionally, we obtained measures of participants' presence, immersion and figural-spatial memory abilities. We also tested a sample of patients with focal epilepsy with an extended version of our shopping task, which consisted of eight days of training.
We observed a comprehensive and stable effect of learning for the number of correct products, the required time for shopping, and the length of movement trajectories in the VR supermarket in the course of the training program. Task performance was significantly correlated with participants' figural-spatial memory abilities and subjective level of immersion into the VR.
Learning effects in our paradigm extend beyond mere verbal learning of the shopping list as the data show evidence for multi-layered learning (at least visual-spatial, strategic, and verbal) on concordant measures. Importantly, learning also correlated with measures of figural-spatial memory and the degree of immersion into the VR. We propose that cognitive training with the VR supermarket program in the OctaVis will be efficient for the assessment and training of real-life cognitive abilities in healthy subjects and patients with epilepsy. It is most likely that our findings will also apply for patients with cognitive disabilities resulting from other neurological and psychiatric syndromes.
为了提高神经心理学工具的生态有效性，可以考虑将虚拟现实 (VR) 应用作为认知神经康复领域的有效工具。尽管 VR 程序的使用越来越多，但只有少数研究考虑将购物或旅行等日常活动应用于 VR 训练设备。
我们开发了一种新颖的 360°-VR 超市，它显示在一个由 8 个触摸屏组成的圆形排列上——“OctaVis”。在这种设置下，健康的成年人必须记住一个听觉呈现的购物清单（清单 A），然后在 VR 超市中购买所有记住的清单上的产品。这个过程在连续三天内完成。第四天，引入了一个新的购物清单（清单 B），参与者必须记住并购买此清单上的所有产品。第五天，参与者必须再次购买清单 A 上所有记住的物品，但不重新呈现清单 A。此外，我们获得了参与者存在感、沉浸感和图形空间记忆能力的测量值。我们还测试了一个有焦点癫痫患者的样本，他们使用我们购物任务的扩展版本，该任务包括八天的训练。
我们观察到学习对正确产品数量、购物所需时间和 VR 超市中运动轨迹长度的综合和稳定影响。任务表现与参与者的图形空间记忆能力和主观沉浸度高度相关。
我们的范式中的学习效果不仅限于对购物清单的单纯口头学习，因为数据显示了在一致的措施上的多层次学习（至少是视觉空间、策略和口头）的证据。重要的是，学习也与图形空间记忆和对 VR 的沉浸程度相关。我们提出，在 OctaVis 中使用 VR 超市程序进行认知训练将有效地评估和训练健康受试者和癫痫患者的现实生活认知能力。我们的发现很可能也适用于因其他神经和精神综合征导致认知障碍的患者。
