Navigating and shopping in a complex virtual urban mall to evaluate cognitive functions

Complex virtual environments (VEs) provide a multisensory, three-dimensional representation of real environments enabling their use in rehabilitation research to characterize and probe cognitive and motor abilities. This paper describes the application of a complex VE to characterize different motor and cognitive (executive) functions associated with navigating and shopping in an urban mall. The complex VE was created using relatively simple graphics and modeling tools, and recently implemented on a self-paced treadmill to allow moving in the VE through voluntary locomotion. Navigation and shopping in the virtual mall was controlled by a combination of different keystrokes and mouse buttons.