VPW

Abstract

The Visual Paired Comparison (VPC) task is widely used to measure recognition memory in psychology and neuroscience research. Recently, the VPC task has shown promise as a diagnostic for the amnestic subtype of Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). Patients diagnosed with aMCI are at an increased risk for developing dementia, especially Alzheimer's disease. However, current implementations of VPC require eye tracking equipment, which is costly and not widely available. This demonstration shows our early prototype of a Web-based version of the VPC task, the Viewport Viewing task (VPW), that requires only a computer with a mouse. A key contribution of VPW is using a computer mouse to induce viewing behavior similar to the original VPC task, so that it can be analyzed to measure the subject's novelty preference. Additionally, the interactive VPW prototype provides data visualization and exploration capabilities to help a clinician or researcher analyze the resulting data. VPW has the potential to extend the accessibility of cognitive diagnostics, allowing for Web-based behavioral screening for aMCI to be deployed world-wide, without requiring any special-purpose equipment. Such a tool would have wide-ranging implications for early diagnosis, for cognitive research, and for clinical practice.