Assessment of goal-directed behavior with the 3D videogame EPELI: Psychometric features in a web-based adult sample

Jylkkä, Jussi; Ritakallio, Liisa; Merzon, Liya; Kangas, Suvi; Kliegel, Matthias; Zuber, Sascha; Hering, Alexandra; Salmi, Juha; Laine, Matti · 2023 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280717

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Summary

This study evaluates the psychometric properties of EPELI (Executive Performance in Everyday Living), a web-based 3D video game designed to assess goal-directed behavior and prospective memory (PM) in ecologically valid contexts. Traditional cognitive assessments often lack ecological validity due to their simplified, static nature, while existing virtual reality tools are resource-intensive and difficult to scale. The authors aimed to determine if a scalable, browser-based version of EPELI could reliably measure executive functions and demonstrate stronger associations with real-world PM reports than conventional laboratory tasks. The researchers conducted a pre-registered study involving 255 healthy adults recruited via Prolific. Participants completed five online sessions over two weeks. The primary assessment involved the EPELI game, where participants performed household chores in a virtual apartment based on instructions from a virtual character. The task included standard chores, time-based PM tasks (triggered by a clock), and an ongoing event-based PM task (triggered by a specific object). To assess validity, participants also completed two conventional PM tasks (Cruiser and Matching), PM-related questionnaires, a five-day PM diary, and an intelligence test. The study examined internal consistency, ecological validity (via self-reports and diary data), and convergent validity (correlations with conventional tasks). The results indicated that online adult-EPELI is a reliable method with high ecological face validity, as participants rated it as more similar to everyday tasks than the conventional laboratory measures. However, the primary hypothesis was not supported: performance in EPELI did not correlate with self-reported PM questionnaires or the five-day diary entries. Regarding convergent validity, there were no significant associations between overall EPELI performance and the conventional PM tasks. Notably, however, time-monitoring behavior within EPELI (frequency of clock checks) was associated with performance on the traditional time-based PM tasks. The study also found that background factors such as age, gender, and intelligence influenced EPELI performance. The findings suggest that while EPELI offers a scalable and ecologically plausible tool for assessing goal-directed behavior, its convergent validity with self-report measures and traditional PM tasks requires further investigation. The lack of correlation with everyday PM reports challenges the assumption that "life-like" tasks automatically align better with real-world functioning than abstract laboratory tasks. The specific link between time-monitoring in EPELI and conventional time-based PM suggests that EPELI may capture specific subprocesses of prospective memory, such as monitoring, rather than general PM ability. These results highlight the complexity of validating naturalistic cognitive assessments and indicate that EPELI is a promising but not yet fully validated tool for measuring everyday executive function.

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• dbq psychometrics