A recent study titled “The role of a virtual avatar in attention and memory tasks in Rett Syndrome” showed that memory and attention can improve significantly thanks to the use of virtual avatars when used as guides to various tasks. The Italian study highlighted the fact that virtual avatars can act as interactive agents in motivating these patients. In some ways, this shouldn't come as a surprise, as previous research in related fields of education have shown that virtual avatars help the learning process in children, especially those who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Rett Syndrome is a problem that shows itself in motor disfunction. It leads to many patients having motor, behavioural, cognitive and language problems. In the most severe cases, patients can only communicate using their eyes. Thanks to new eye-tracking technologies, studies are able to assess patients cognitive performance in a much more detailed manner. It's been clearly shown that using virtual avatars, objects and events can improve both learning abilities and attention spans for patients with intellectual abilities.
Because the avatar is a virtual construction, it can be made to look and perform in a manner that's much more stimulating than a human pedagogical agent could perform. As such this acts as a powerful and stimulating social motivator which in turn boosts the user's interest in the task at hand. Researches noted that Retts patients “are very motivated to look at the face of therapists and parents, an avatar acting human-like gestures, speech, gaze and behaviours may be very motivating to join in the learning process.”
In 2019, the same Italian team of researchers performed experiments to see if a virtual avatar can improve the attention and memory of 35 subjects, all suffering from Rett Syndrome. They range from 4 to 36 years of age. All have previously attended special schools or socio-educational centres. The severity of the disease is around 71% across all patients. The actual test consisted of a four-hour memory task, along with two attention tasks. These were all presented randomly both with and without any virtual avatars. When virtual avatars were used they gave instructions about the tasks and asked the users to give their answers. When the experiment was performed without the virtual avatars, then a voice gave instructions. The tasks were monitored using eye-tracking technology.
The difference in results was quite staggering. When the virtual avatar was used it helped extend the time spend looking for the answers by a significant amount and resulted in a higher proportion of correct answers across the board. As the researchers noted, “presented a statistically significant improvement in attention and memory abilities” when tasked were performed with the virtual avatars. The results indicated that “the avatar acts as a cognitive strengthener.” It helped them “structure the appropriate processes and improve their attention and their learning.”
Researchers added that this new study would help “families and educators to identify what software can be effectively used to help children and girls with RTT [Rett syndrome], and also software designers to make good evidence-based choices to offer more focused software, capable of giving significant performance improvements.” Though they did also stress that more studies are needed in order to fully understand why avatars are able to improve the learning process by such a noticeable degree.
In conclusion, the team said that they would like to verify “whether the avatar can also act as a social motivational model and improve attention and memory at the neurological level. They would hope to do this by measuring patients’ brain activity during the tasks.