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BACKGROUND In neuropsychology, fully immersive virtual reality (VR) has been spotlighted as a promising tool. It is considered that VR not only overcomes the existing limitation of neuropsychological tests but is also appropriate for treating executive functions (EFs) within activities of daily living (ADL) due to its high ecological validity. While fully immersive VR offers new possibilities of neuropsychological tests, there are few studies that overview the intellectual landscape and academic trends in the research related to mainly targeted EFs with fully immersive VR. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to get an overview of the research trends that use VR in neuropsychological tests and to analyze the research trends using fully immersive VR neuropsychological tests with experimental articles. METHODS This review was carried out according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Articles were searched in three web databases using keywords related to VR, EFs, and cognitive abilities. The study was conducted in two steps, keyword analysis and in-depth systematic review. In the web database search from 2000 to 2019, 1167 articles were initially collected, of which 234 articles in the eligibility phase were used to conduct keyword analysis and a total of 47 articles were included for systematic review. RESULTS In keyword analysis, the number of articles focused on dementia including the keywords “MCI,” “SCD,” and “dementia” were highlighted over the period, rather than other symptoms. In addition, we identified that the use of behavioral and physiological data in virtual environments (VEs) has dramatically increased in recent studies. In the systematic review, we focused on the purpose of study, assessment, treatment, and validation of usability and structure. We found that treatment studies and uncategorized studies including presence and cybersickness issues have emerged in the recent period. In addition, the target symptoms and range of participants were diversified. CONCLUSIONS There has been a continuously increasing interest in dealing with neuropsychology by using fully immersive VR. Target cognitive abilities have been diversified, as well as target symptoms. Moreover, the concept of embodied cognition was transplanted in this research area.

BACKGROUND In neuropsychology, fully-immersive virtual reality has been spotlighted as a promising tool. It is considered that not only overcome existing limitation of neuropsychological tests, but also appropriate for treating executive functions within daily living tasks due to its high ecological validity. While fully-immersive virtual reality offers the new possibilities of neuropsychological tests, there are only few studies that use fully-immersive virtual reality to mainly targeted executive functions. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to overview the research trends that use virtual reality in neuropsychological tests and to analyze the research trends using fully-immersive virtual reality neuropsychological tests with experimental articles. METHODS This review was carried out according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) guidelines. Articles were searched in three web databases using the keywords related to virtual reality, executive functions, and cognitive abilities and publishing year were limited from 2000 to 2019. Studies were divided into two categories: keyword analysis and descriptive analysis. RESULTS : From the web database searching, 1167 articles were collected initially. A total of 47 articles were included for descriptive analysis, and 234 articles in eligibility phase was used to conduct keyword analysis. In keyword analysis, it is conducted to overview the research trends about target cognitive abilities, target symptoms, and behavioral and physiological data. In descriptive analysis, final included articles were analyzed with its purpose of study, target cognitive abilities and virtual environments, and their participants to look the trends more deeply. CONCLUSIONS There has been a continuously increased interest in dealing with neuropsychology by using fully-immersive virtual reality. Target cognitive abilities were diversified, as well as target symptoms. Moreover, the concept of embodied cognition was transplanted in this research area.