Virtual environments in cognitive rehabilitation of executive functions

The V.E.Ne.Re. Project (Virtual Executive NEuropsychological REhabilitation) consists in the constuction and validation of artificial environments based on Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, aimed for cognitive rehabilitation of executive functions (frontal lobe dysfunction; dysexecutive syndrome). Damasio (1994) pointed at the discrepancy between non immersive artificial lab tests and real life situations to explain the frequent diagnostic and therapeutic failures that occur when traditional cognitive tools are used with frontal patients. In this perspective, VR environments which are capable to generate a better subjective perception of presence and immersivity, become a very promising alternative to enhance cognitive neuropsychology of executive functions. On these premises, we will describe the current three components of V.E.Ne.Re., with special regard to the V-Store software, which consists in a set of tasks aimed to empower executive functions, attention, short term memory, behaviour control and metacognition. V-Store is planned to offer a high level of interaction and to induce time pressure, eliciting subjective managing strategies. The same environment will be used to implement also the virtual versions of two well-known cognitive tests: V-ToL (VR version of Shallice’s Tower of London); V-WCST (VR version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test). We are currently starting to test our environments, with regards to their clinical efficacy, cost/benefit effectiveness, subjective experience and usability.