A VR ecosystem for telemedicine and non-intrusive cognitive and affective assessment

Long duration exploration missions present unique challenges to the behavioral health of astronauts. Factors like isolation, social monotony, extreme living conditions, chronic stress, and interpersonal differences within the team can affect both crew wellbeing and performance. Therefore, we have developed a VR environments and VR games to study team dynamics, cooperation and cohesion among crew members. We have tested this game during 12- and 8-month long space flight simulation studies at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) facilities in Waimea, HI, where subjects underwent adjustments in physiology and lifestyle that are analogous to some of the challenges in a confined environment (HI-SEAS.org). The goal of this work supports NASA's goals to “identify and validate measures to monitor behavioral health and performance during autonomous, long duration and/or long distance exploration missions”. Our results indicate that virtual reality can be used as an effective platform and sensor to test the effects of social isolation and monotony on team dynamics during long-duration missions. VR could also be effective for delivering other types of assessments and therapies.