Investigation of the Testability and Validity for the Search Task in the Virtual Reality Space with Typically Developing Children

Abstract

The present study is aimed at investigating testability and validity of a quantitative measurement of topographical orientation （TO） skill with an immersive virtual reality （VR） system. Twenty-two elementary school children participated in the VR tests. The task in the VR was to find a target hidden in one of several pillars arranged on the floor of the virtual environment, by walking through the virtual reality space and placing subject’s head inside the pillars. Correlations among the searching time in the VR task, topographical orientation questionnaire for children （TOQ-C） and other visual perceptual tests were analyzed. Two out of five categories in TOQ-C; ability to form a cognitive map, ability to use landmarks were significantly correlated with the searching time in the VR task when subjects could not overview the maps during the task. Our results indicated that the new VR testing method is useful to measure TO skills with good testability and validity and the measurement the data with patient of developmental topographical disorientation was considered to be collected.