BACKGROUND
Cognitive deficits are present in a number of neuropsychiatric disorders including, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and depression. Assessments used to measure cognition in these disorders are time-consuming, burdensome, and have low ecological validity. To address these limitations, we developed a novel virtual reality shopping task – VStore.
OBJECTIVE
This study aims to establish the concurrent and construct validity of VStore in relation to the established computerized cognitive battery, Cogstate; and tests its sensitivity to age related cognitive decline.
METHODS
Hundred and four healthy volunteers aged 20-79 completed both assessments. Main VStore outcomes included: 1) verbal recall of 12 grocery items, 2) time to collect items, 3) time to select items on a self-checkout machine, 4) time to make the payment, 5) time to order coffee, and 6) total completion time. To establish concurrent validity, bivariate correlations were performed between VStore outcomes and Cogstate tasks measuring attention, processing speed, verbal and visual learning, working memory, executive function, and paired associate learning. Construct validity analysis was also performed to examine which cognitive domains best predicted VStore performance. Finally, two ridge regression models were built using VStore outcomes in the first, and Cogstate outcomes in the second model as predictors of biological age to compare their sensitivity to age-related cognitive decline.
RESULTS
We found moderate correlations between VStore and Cogstate outcomes. VStore Total Time was best explained by tasks measuring working memory and paired associate learning, in addition to age and technological familiarity, accounting for 46% of the variance. Finally, with λ = 5.16, the model fitting selected five parameters for VStore when predicting biological age (MSE = 185.8, SE= 19.34). With λ = 9.49 for Cogstate, the model fitting selected all eight tasks (MSE = 226.8, SE = 23.48).
CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that VStore is a promising assessment that engages standard cognitive domains and is sensitive to age-related cognitive decline.
CLINICALTRIAL
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