Ice Cream: new virtual reality tool for the assessment of executive functions in children and adolescents: a normative study

Emotional eating, internet overuse, and alcohol intake among college students: a pilot study with virtual reality

Introduction

The term emotional eating (EE) describes the tendency to eat as an automatic response to negative emotions and has been linked to anxiety and depression, common symptoms among the university population. The EE tendencies have also been associated with excessive internet use and an increase in alcohol intake among young university students.

Methods

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the tendency towards EE and other health-compromising behaviors, such as excessive internet use or high alcohol intake. Additionally, it aims to investigate the association of these risky behaviors with the participants' performance level in a virtual reality (VR) task that assesses their executive functioning, and to assess impulsivity and levels of anxiety and depression.

Results

The results associate EE with excessive internet (r = 0.332; p < 0.01). use but not with alcohol consumption. Alcohol consumption was not associated with anxiety, depression, or impulsivity, but it was related to altered executive functions in the VR task: flexibility and working memory explained 24.5% of the variance. By contrast, EE and internet overuse were not related to executive function but were associated with impulsivity, depression, and anxiety. Impulsivity and depressive symptoms accounted for 45% of the variance in EE. Depression, trait anxiety and impulsivity explained 40.6% of the variance in internet overuse.

Discussion

The results reveal distinct patterns of psychological and neuropsychological alterations associated with alcohol consumption compared to emotional eating (EE) and excessive internet use. These findings underscore significant differences in the contributing factors between addictions and other substance-free addictive behaviors. For a deeper understanding of the various contributing factors to EE in college students, further research is recommended.

Suite test. A virtual reality based neuropsychological assessment tool for memory. A normative study on immediate, short-term and delayed memory tasks

OBJECTIVE

To collect normative data for the Suite test, a virtual reality (VR) tool designed to assess memory processes.

METHOD

The normative sample included 676 subjects (49.7% female), aged from 12 to 85 years. The Suite test comprises a 360-degree VR environment designed as a furniture shop, in which participants must group specific sets of furniture items (ordered by different families of customers) by clicking on the furniture to be packed following instructions from a voice-over.

RESULTS

Core variables provided were grouped into immediate, short-term and long-term delayed recall. Cluster analyses established five age groups (12 years old, 13 to 26, 27 to 44, 45 to 58, and 59 to 85) with gender differentiated norms only deemed necessary for those transitioning from adolescence to adulthood (13 to 26) and from middle age to older adulthood (45 to 58). No statistically significant differences were found for additional gender × age normative groups, or for any group differentiated by educational level. A confirmatory factor analysis raised the existence of two differentiated factors, one associated to encoding processes (immediate memory trials) and the other to retrieval processes (both short term and long-term delayed recall trials grouping into the same factor). Additional results on the test reliability and internal consistency are presented.

CONCLUSIONS

Suite Test can help explore memory deficits across the life span and differentiate between visual and verbal memory strategies. Further research is required to study the test sensitivity and specificity, as well as convergent validity studies with well-established memory assessment tools.