Communications of the ACM
Virtual Reality Navigation System to Help Diagnose Cognitive Defects
The VE-HuNT System is a combination of hardware and software that immerses test subjects in a human-scale, interactive, virtual-reality-based 'room.'
Credit: UC San Diego
The onset of dementia can lead to the inability to navigate a neighborhood or building, and a new low-cost, virtual reality-based tool is being developed at the University of California, San Diego's (UCSD) Qualcomm Institute to address the problem. The Virtual Environment Human Navigation Task (VE-HuNT) System project is led by UCSD professor Eduardo Macagno. Users manipulate a computer interface device similar to a steering wheel and gas pedal to navigate a room created in three dimensions; the room is a portable, office-sized version of the Qualcomm Institute's NexCAVE or StarCAVE environments.
Test subjects use the system to perform a series of increasingly difficult navigational tasks, such as finding a colored tile on the floor with and without navigational cues. "The idea is to give an older person a series of tests and see where they fail," Macagno says. "We record how long it takes them, which paths they take." The VE-HuNT system features commercial consumer components and is compact enough to be used in any neurology or clinical facility.
The first test of the system will involve 20 to 30 adults in varying stages of cognitive decline and a corresponding number of control subjects. Software based on the Qualcomm Institute's CAVE-CAD software will be developed for the trials, as will an algorithm derived from electro-oculography data recorded synchronously in the StarCAVE.
From UC San Diego
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