The Role of Gaming Experience in Virtual Reality Cognitive Assessments

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly being explored as a potential addition to classical pen-and-paper tests when it comes to assessing neurocognitive functioning. In these VR-assessments, prior experience with gaming could act as a bias, and boost an individuals VR performance. For example, experienced gamers may have better attention or move at a faster speed. To examine whether gaming experience influences VR performance, and whether there is a difference in this effect between TBI-patients and healthy controls, 66 participants (37 TBI-patients, 29 healthy controls) performed a task in a virtual restaurant simulation. Three VR-outcome measures were examined: speed (average time spent per item), mistakes (amount of items that were dropped) and learning (improvement in task speed). Gaming experience was measured with a questionnaire. Results showed a positive relation between gaming experience and speed and learning. No relationship was found between gaming experience and mistakes. These effects were similar for TBI-patients and healthy controls. Findings highlight the importance of taking gaming experience into account in future studies on VR, improving the interpretation of VR cognitive assessments.