title: Eye Movement Analysis and Cognitive Assessment. The Use of Comparative Visual Search Tasks in a Non-immersive VR Application.
abstract: 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).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  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.
authors.affiliation: Pedro Rosa, School of Psychology and Life Sciences, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Campo Grande 376, Lisbon, Portugal, E-mail: pedro.rosa@ulusofona.pt.
authors.forename: Pedro J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Rosa
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gamito
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.forename: Diogo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Morais
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pavlovic
authors.forename: Olivia
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Smyth
authors.forename: Inês
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Maia
authors.forename: Tiago
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gomes
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Eye movements; attention; comparative visual search task; memory; virtual reality