Visual Sequential Search Test Analysis: An Algorithmic Approach

Abstract

In this work we present an algorithmic approach to the analysis of the Visual Sequential Search Test (VSST) based on the episode matching method. The data set included two groups of patients, one with Parkinson’s disease, and another with chronic pain syndrome, along with a control group. The VSST is an eye-tracking modified version of the Trail Making Test (TMT) which evaluates high order cognitive functions. The episode matching method is traditionally used in bioinformatics applications. Here it is used in a different context which helps us to assign a score to a set of patients, under a specific VSST task to perform. Experimental results provide statistical evidence of the different behaviour among different classes of patients, according to different pathologies.

Keywords

• visual sequential search test
• episode matching
• trail making test
• sequence alignment
• alignment score