Virtual city – battery of serious games for cognitive training in ecologically valid virtual environmen

INTRODUCTION:

The aim of the project is to create a complex training SW in VR city environment with high ecological validity that will enable a comprehensive exercise of cognitive abilities. The program will be later applied in the day-care facilities for elderly, where it can serve in healthy programs as prevention of cognitive deficits associated with aging.

TECHNOLOGY (INVENTION) DESCRIPTION:

The training application is developed in one of today's most used game engine - Unity, which has very good support for VR hardware. Together with the SteamVR (Valve VR system), VR runs on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Playstation VR and Samsung Gear VR VR's most popular VR applications. The Virtual City application is designed according to the model-view-controller paradigm, that includes two parts of the model (internal state of the application), "view" (what the user sees) and "control" (reverse interaction with the model). Due to the good scalability, we designed a general API that allows the game to dynamically register individual games - it is possible to develop individual games (or game versions) independent of each other and run them without editing the entire application.

ADVANTAGES OVER EXISTING SOLUTIONS:

Current training systems applied in elderly apply simple computer tasks presented on a computer screen. While such simple applications bring some benefits, such as easy game control allowing broad usage in homes of individuals, the limitation of these approaches is mainly in the ecological validity of the trained abilities or the training content. The proposed project therefore incorporates training games directly located in complex city environment allowing simulation of real-like situations and scenarios, including social life. The realism of virtual environments and simulated situations can also facilitate the transfer of adopted strategies in to real life.

DEVELOPMENT STATUS (STAGE):

Preclinical, proof-of-concept. We have created prototypes of six serious games.

PUBLICATIONS:

The technology was not published.

IP PROTECTION STATUS:

Source codes are not publicly available. The licensing plan is being prepared.

TECHNOLOGY / IP OWNERS :

National Institute of Mental Health CZ 3dsense s.r.o.