JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the development of remote psychological assessment. These platforms increase accessibility and allow clinicians to monitor important health metrics thereby informing patient-centered treatment.

Objective:

Here we report on the properties and usability of a new web-based neurocognitive assessment battery and present a normative dataset for future use.

Methods:

Seven hundred eighty-one participants completed a portion of 8 tasks which captured performance in auditory processing, visual-spatial working memory, visual-spatial learning, cognitive flexibility, and emotional processing. A subset of individuals (n=195) completed a five-question survey measuring the acceptability of the tasks.

Results:

Between 252 and 426 participants completed each task. Younger individuals outperformed their older counterparts on 6 of the 8 tasks. Therefore, central tendency data metrics were presented by seven different age bins. The broad majority of participants found the tasks interesting, enjoyable and endorsed some interest in playing them at home. Less than one percent of individuals endorsed not at all for the statement: I understood the instructions. Older individuals were more likely to understand the instructions to a lower extent; however, 72 percent of individuals over the age of 60 still felt that they understood the instructions at the level of mostly or very much.

Conclusions:

Overall, the tasks were found to be widely acceptable to participants. Use of web-based neurocognitive tasks such as these may increase the ability to deploy precise data informed interventions to a wider population.