An immersive virtual reality system for ecological assessment of peripersonal and extrapersonal unilateral spatial neglect.
Daniel Perez-Marcos, Roberta Ronchi, Arthur Giroux and 4 others
PMID 36934277WHAT IT FOUND
Healthy adults completed an immersive virtual reality test of spatial attention.
They found it comfortable and enjoyable, with the far-space version preferred. However, they showed a natural bias to look left. This tool is not yet validated for detecting neglect in patients.
Key findings
01The virtual reality tasks were well-tolerated, with participants reporting high comfort and low levels of dizziness or pain.
02Participants showed a consistent bias towards exploring the left side of space in the virtual environments, regardless of task difficulty.
03The far-space task was the most preferred by participants, who found it more ecological and entertaining than the near-space or paper-and-pencil tasks.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was conducted only on healthy adults, so it does not prove the tool can accurately diagnose neglect in patients. The sample size was small (39 participants). A natural leftward bias was found in healthy participants, which complicates the definition of 'normal' performance and requires careful interpretation. The clinical validation on neurological patients is explicitly stated as beyond the scope of this paper.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI). No other conflicts of interest were reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this tool is ready for clinical diagnosis. The study tested healthy people and found they naturally look left more than right. This baseline bias must be understood before using the tool to identify neglect in patients, as it could lead to false positives or negatives.