NISrv: a virtual reality tool for assessing social interactions
Pages 37 to 51
Cite this article
- JOLLIVET, Maxime,
- BESNARD, Jérémy,
- BANVILLE, Frédéric
- and ALLAIN, Philippe,
- Jollivet, Maxime.,
- et al.
- Jollivet, M.,
- Besnard, J.,
- Banville, F.
- and Allain, P.
https://doi.org/10.1684/nrp.2025.0813
Cite this article
- Jollivet, M.,
- Besnard, J.,
- Banville, F.
- and Allain, P.
- Jollivet, Maxime.,
- et al.
- JOLLIVET, Maxime,
- BESNARD, Jérémy,
- BANVILLE, Frédéric
- and ALLAIN, Philippe,
https://doi.org/10.1684/nrp.2025.0813
Social interaction difficulties represent a significant source of challenges for patients affected by such conditions. These difficulties are prevalent in numerous neurological conditions, yet the majority of available tools for understanding and “objectifying” this type of difficulty are predominantly based on social-cognitive conceptions that fail to consider the interactionist context and do not involve the participant in an interaction situation. Moreover, the conventional approach to tests and questionnaires in neuropsychology places almost exclusive emphasis on the notion of efficiency, which is challenging to translate to a concept such as interaction. This article presents the Neuropsychology of Social Interaction in Virtual Reality (NISrv), which aims to address these criticisms. To this end, we draw on the concept of norm as functional regularity and social rule, as evoked by Foucault in his reflections on the normal and the pathological. We use the clinical description elements of apathy and impulsivity to develop the response typologies of the NISrv. We illustrate the use of the NISrv through two case studies of patients with head trauma. The results demonstrate that, based on NISrv scores, it is possible to identify distinct difficulty profiles, which we have labeled apathetic or impulsive in relation to our task construct. Furthermore, the NISrv provides an indication of patients’ degree of disorder awareness. Our results also suggest that the NISrv approach is complementary to that of conventional tasks.