A Virtual Reality-Based Tool to Investigate Spatial Planning

The early neuropsychological assessment tools have been developed with the construct validity of the measure as a primary consideration. Such traditional tests are known to provide objective and standardized measure. However, they use specialized and decontextualized exercises which break the functioning unity of the multiple cognitive capacities. Thus, tests based on process-oriented exercises have been developed, such as the Zoo Map Test. By soliciting various capacities to solve a practical problem, this test brings an interesting framework to assess multiple aspects of the planning. This test has shown its usefulness in various clinical populations. However, additional investigations are needed to understand planning behaviors in more details and measure them with improved accuracy and ecological validity. To his end, we converted this paper-and-pencil test into a Virtual Reality-based assessment tool of planning. This paper describes the difficulties and the limits as well as the new opportunities in converting a 2D map consisting of roads and places into a 3D virtual environment.