The use of Virtual Reality technologies in neuropsychological studies

Περίληψη

The present paper reviews studies that demonstrate the utility of Virtual Reality (VR) in psychology. It starts with an outline of the types of VR technologies and related issues, followed by a description of a number of VR tests developed for assessment and rehabilitation pur­poses. It then emphasizes one of the main assets of VR simulated environments, namely that they may feature high ecological validity without sacrificing experimental control, and in this way VR may improve the ecological validity of neuropsychological investigations that look in particular, at executive functioning. It is precisely within this context that recent work is reviewed: a set of computer-based tasks that allow carefully controlled, simulated environments, and where participants (a group of patient with frontal lobe lesions and a control group) are faced with ‘real world' situations.