DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENT FOR COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT

Abstract

Cognitive enhancement has received considerable attention during the last decade, both in the general public and in academic discourse. Cognitive Enhancement refers to use of any intervention directed at improving any of the cognitive functions such as memory, attention, concentration, learning, planning and reasoning abilities. The interventions can be of conventional or non- conventional types. In this study, I decided to make use of Virtual Reality (VR) as the intervention for the cognitive enhancement. First part of the study involved the development of a VR environment (Virtual Battlefield) to be used as the intervention. VR can help user in reducing distress and at the same time can assist in improving the person’s cognition and therefore has been widely used as a means of cognitive enhancement. Two groups of military persons were asked to take part in this study and multipronged analysis was carried out. The results from various tests were analysed to understand the effect of VR on cognitive enhancement of the subjects. The trends obtained from the tests indicate fair amount of enhancement in the cognitive functions of younger soldiers not involved in combat till date. With the latest advanced technologies, the complex signals like EEG, EMG, EOG, ECG etc can be analysed in a suitable manner to establish its relationship with the psychological parameters like attention, stress, memory etc. The analysis was carried out by studying the effects of the VR on the individuals using the changes in various physiological parameters using the EEG and ECG signals. The psychological test conducted using Vienna Test Systems indicated a definite improvement on some of the cognitive functions for the subjects such as improved eye-hand coordination, attention and visual memory.