Increased scene complexity during free visual exploration reveals residual unilateral neglect in recovered stroke patients

Luelsdorff, Kira; Schlichting, Nadine; Schmidt‐Wilcke, Tobias; Zimmermann, Eckart

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108400

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We also discovered that USN+ patients’ gaze behavior differed from controls’ on the Storage task, especially in ecological scene with objects: USN+ patients’ gaze was less focused on the left and more focused on the right side than the controls’. Fully immersive VR studies with free exploration tasks have shown that gaze asymmetry ( Hougaard et al, 2021 ) and the orientation bias toward the ipsilesional side are sensitive USN measures ( Knoppe et al, 2022 ). Prior studies with eye tracking and non-immersive VR tasks ( Cazzoli et al, 2016 ) or computerized tasks ( Machner et al, 2018 ) have similarly reported a rightward bias in gaze patterns and eye movements in USN patients.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What has been largely missing, however, are VR studies assessing extinction in different spatial domains (see Fordell et al, 2011 ). Moreover, only a few USN studies utilize fully immersive VR with integrated eye-tracking cameras ( Sugihara et al, 2016 ; Hougaard et al, 2021 ; Knoppe et al, 2022 ). This new technology allows collection of gaze coordinates and path, number of fixation points, saccade and fixation duration, and several other measures pinpointing processes reflecting visual spatial attention ( Duchowski, 2002 ; Clay et al, 2019 ; Kaufmann et al, 2019 ; Merzon et al, 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gaze-based responses enable task performance monitoring with millisecond level temporal precision ( Hougaard et al, 2021 ) and search behavior evaluation without motor skills affecting the performance. Fully immersive VR studies with eye tracking and gaze behavior measures have demonstrated that patients with left USN may show orientation bias toward the ipsilesional side ( Knoppe et al, 2022 ) and rightward deviation in gaze and head orientation ( Hougaard et al, 2021 ). In some VR studies, higher task complexity has improved detection of USN deficits ( Buxbaum et al, 2008 ; Ogourtsova et al, 2018a ), but this issue has so far only sparsely been examined with VR eye-tracking methods in USN patients ( Knoppe et al, 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Virtual reality tasks with eye tracking for mild spatial neglect assessment: a pilot study with acute stroke patients

Uimonen,

Villarreal,

Laari

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectiveIncreasing evidence shows that traditional neuropsychological tests are insensitive for detecting mild unilateral spatial neglect (USN), lack ecological validity, and are unable to clarify USN in all different spatial domains. Here we present a new, fully immersive virtual reality (VR) task battery with integrated eye tracking for mild visual USN and extinction assessment in the acute state of stroke to overthrow these limitations.MethodsWe included 11 right-sided stroke patients and 10 healthy controls aged 18−75 years. Three VR tasks named the Extinction, the Storage and the Shoot the target tasks were developed to assess USN. Furthermore, neuropsychological assessment examining various parts of cognitive functioning was conducted to measure general abilities. We compared VR and neuropsychological task performance in stroke patients – those with (USN+, n = 5) and without USN (USN−, n = 6) – to healthy controls (n = 10) and tentatively reported the usability of VR system in the acute state of stroke.ResultsPatients had mostly mild neurological and USN symptoms. Nonetheless, we found several differences between the USN+ and healthy control groups in VR task performance. Compared to controls, USN+ patients showed visual extinction and asymmetry in gaze behavior and detection times in distinct spatial locations. Extinction was most evident in the extrapersonal space and delayed detection times on the extreme left and on the left upper parts. Also, USN+ patients needed more time to complete TMT A compared with USN− patients and TMT B compared with controls. VR system usability and acceptance were rated high; no relevant adverse effects occurred.ConclusionNew VR technology with eye tracking enables ecologically valid and objective assessment methods with various exact measures for mild USN and thus could potentially improve future clinical assessments.

show abstract