Visual Paired Comparison as a dementia screening tool
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Visual Paired Comparison for Alzheimer's Screening in an Eyetracking Task
IRAS ID
351998
Contact name
Charlotte Bonardi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 30 days
Research summary
Problems with memory become common as people get older. If these symptoms are worse than expected for their age, they may be diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). MCI symptoms may stay the same, or even improve, but they sometimes get worse and progress to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). However, this is difficult to predict, and none of the tests we have now are very reliable.
One clue may lie in recognition memory – recognising something as familiar, and recollecting something about when or where we encountered it. Difficulty with recognition memory is typical of AD. Our new theory of recognition breaks it down into two components, which we can measure separately in variations of a test called the VPC (Visual Paired Comparison) task. The test uses an eye-tracking camera to record the person’s eye-movements while they look at a series of pictures presented on a computer screen. We think these new tests will be extra sensitive for detecting memory impairments, using people's eye-movement patterns.
In this study, we want to find out whether our VPC test is acceptable to people with MCI and AD, and how practical it would be to use in the clinic. We also want to know how it compares with current memory tests for people with MCI and dementia.REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/SC/0303
Date of REC Opinion
28 Nov 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion