Decision Making and Cognitive Behavioral Flexibility in a OCD Sample: a Study in a Virtual Environment.

Neuropsychological disorders are common in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) patients. Executive functions, verbal fluency and verbal memory, shifting attention from one aspect of stimuli to others, mental flexibility, engaging in executive planning and decision making, are the most involved cognitive domains. We focus on two aspects of neuropsychological function: decision making and cognitive behavioral flexibility, assessed through a virtual version of the Multiple Errand Test (V-MET), developed using the NeuroVR software.

Cognitive Assessment of OCD Patients: NeuroVR vs Neuropsychological Test.

This study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Neuro-Virtual Reality as tool for the neuropsychological assessment in OCD patients. We used the neuropsychological battery and a virtual version of the Multiple Errand Test (V-MET), developed using the NeuroVR software, in order to evaluate the executive functions, the ability to plan ahead on complex problem solving tasks in daily life in 30 obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) patients and 30 healthy controls. The results showed the presence of difficulties of OCD patients: lower levels of divided attention and higher levels of errors; higher mean rank of inefficiencies, interpretation failures and rule breaks and longer time of execution of the whole task.

Cognitive rehabilitation of schizophrenia through NeuroVr training.

Cognitive difficulties are prevalent in people with diagnosis of schizophrenia and are associated with poor long-term functioning. In particular, memory, selective, divided and sustained attention and executive functions are altered by this disease. We used a Virtual Reality environment (developed via the NeuroVr2.

Assessment of executive functions in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder by NeuroVR.

Executive functions are often impaired in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We used a Virtual Reality version of the Multiple Errand Test (VMET) - developed dusing the free NeuroVR software (http://www.neurovr.

Use of robotics kits for the enhancement of metacognitive skills of mathematics: a possible approach.

The present study is aimed at analyzing the process of building and programming robots as a metacognitive tool of mathematics. Quantitative data from a study performed on a sample of students attending an Italian secondary school are described. Results showed that robotics activities may be used as a new metacognitive environment allowing students to improve their attitude towards mathematics, and to increase their attitude to reflect on themselves and on their own learning, and their higher-level control components, such as forecasting, planning, monitoring and evaluation exercises and problems related to implementation.