It is proposed that affordable immersive virtual reality (IVR) technology has the potential of improving current procedures for the clinical evaluation and retraining of acquired cognitive impairments of the adult through the simulation of quasi-real 3D interactive situations. To pursue this goal, we have promoted the ARCANA project, a nationally-founded collaborative initiative aimed at the development of IVR systems dedicated to research and clinical applications in the field of cognitive science. The hardware, the virtual environment and the cognitive demands of the ARCANA systems have been designed to meet the requirements for utilisation with impaired patients. In addition, the virtual environments are parameterized, and hence easily configured by the therapists. Cognitive performance can be analyzed in terms of both competence and processing aspects. The systems store behavioural data in many formats and enable the monitoring of biomedical data from the behaving subjects.

The clinical validation of ARCANA 1 - devised to assist the assessment and retraining of control components of cognitive activity - is in progress in our Institute on brain damaged patients, while the physical and psychological effects of long-term IVR exposure on normal individuals are concurrently assessed.