A Virtual Kitchen Protocol to Measure Everyday Memory Functioning for Meal Preparation

Michael D Barnett; Lucas G Childers; Thomas D Parsons

doi:10.3390/brainsci11050571

A Virtual Kitchen Protocol to Measure Everyday Memory Functioning for Meal Preparation

Brain Sci. 2021 Apr 29;11(5):571. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11050571.

Authors

Michael D Barnett¹, Lucas G Childers¹, Thomas D Parsons²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology and Counseling, The University of Texas at Tyler, 3900 University Boulevard, Tyler, TX 75799, USA.
² iCenter for Affective Neurotechnologies (iCAN), College of Information, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA.

Abstract

In this study, we developed the Virtual Kitchen Protocol (VKP), a virtual reality-based measure of everyday memory functioning for meal preparation tasks. We investigated the construct validity of the VKP by comparing the performance of young adults (n = 41) and older adults without (n = 52) and with (n = 7) a neurocognitive diagnosis, as well as by examining correlations with standardized measures of verbal and visual memory. The results show that young adults had higher recall than older adults and that the VKP was sensitive to neurocognitive impairment among older adults. The VKP demonstrated moderate to high correlations with other memory tests. These results support the construct validity of the VKP and suggest that it holds promise as a virtual reality-based measure of memory for meal preparation tasks.

Keywords: activities of daily living; computer use; instrumental activities of daily living; older adults; serious games; verbal memory; video games; visual memory.