People with aphasia (PWA) experience language impairments due to brain damage such as stroke. Daily (functional) communication is already difficult because of the language impairment, but also because of additional cognitive demands such as time pressure and the distractions such as noise. Assessment of everyday communication, however, remains a challenge. Mainstream pen-and-paper based instruments do not capture the complex cognitive demands that are present in the real world, which means they are not representative of day-to-day communication.

The goal of this project is to develop a (proof-of concept version of) a functional communication test for PWA, using virtual reality (VR).  VR makes it possible to simulate realistic communicative interactions between a person and a computer-generated avatar, including both verbal and nonverbal behaviour.  It also allows manipulation of various factors (i.e., background noise) that may increase communicative complexity and assess their impact. What is more, non-linguistic cognitive problems (particularly executive control difficulties) can make it difficult for PWA to imagine being in a communicative situation and to pretend having a conversation. As VR may help PWA to put themselves in a communicative situation, it is expected that the validity of the VR-based communication test will be increased in comparison to a pen-and-paper based version.

This study is supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) under Grant NWA.1418.22.025.

For more information see https://neurolab.nl/kleine-projecten-toewijzingen and https://www.ru.nl/en/research/research-projects/dynamic-assessment-of-everyday-communication-using-virtual-reality-dcom-vr