PIT 360 app for iPhone and iPad

The Picture Interpretation Test (PIT) 360 is the 360° photography version of the original Picture Interpretation Test (Rosci et al., 2005). In the original PIT, a small-scale color reproduction (19x13) of the famous painting “Il Sorcio” of the Italian painter Giacomo Favretto is used as test stimuli. In this painting, it is represented a room in a mess, with three scared girls standing on chairs and a boy who is searching for something on the floor. Although not visible, it is possible to figure out that there is are mouse hidden behind a piece of furniture. Participants are asked to interpret what is happening in the scene in a limited time frame (180 seconds), while the time is registered as outcome measure until they say the word "mouse".

From a technical point of view, PIT 360° has been developed with Ricoh Theta S Digital Camera that permits to create 360° spherical images. The camera is able to capture a 360◦ image of the scene by stitching two 180◦ images thanks to the integrated software at a resolution of 1792 by 3584 pixels. It is possible to experience an immersive stereoscopic 360◦ experience directly on the mobile phone thanks to the Theta Ricoh application with a virtual reality headset. To familiarize with the technology, participants are firstly presented with a 360° photography of a room including a table in the center, a sink with a mirror on the right, a television on a table, two wardrobes on the left, several chairs and objects spread in the room. The purpose is to check whether participants are able to use the technology by correctly identifying some of the objects spread in the room and to exclude some possible side effects (e.g., dizziness, nausea ...). After wearing the virtual reality headset connected to a Cardboard supported mobile phone, participants are asked to find five objects in the scene and answer to the experimenters questions (i.e. "Look for the agenda. Where is the agenda?").

In the PIT 360°, the same room of the familiarization task has been used to reproduce the scene of the famous painting of Favretto before described. After wearing again the virtual reality headset connected to mobile phone, participants are asked to freely explore the scene to interpret what is happening as quickly as possible (maximum time: 180 seconds). Generic clarifications are allowed.

Time registration (in seconds) and audio-recording starts from the moment in which the experimenter say "Open your eyes" to the moment in which participants say words "mouse" or something similar, such us "snake", "roach", etc. Participants are explicitly encouraged to verbalize what are seeing the scene during the session. The idea is that they have to understand that actors in the scene are looking for an animal hidden in the room; the experimenter clearly ask "What do you mean?" when they arrive at the correct answer to obtain a confirm.

The following indices can be calculated:
1) Correct interpretation: It is the time in seconds registered from the moments in which the experimenter says the words "Open your eyes" until the participant provides a correct interpretation" (i.e., "mouse", "snake", etc.). The maximum time allowed was 180 seconds, consequently if the participants fails in the interpretation a time of 180 seconds was assigned as the outcome (as suggested by (Rosci et al., 2005);
2) Number of scene elements for correct interpretation: It is the sum of the elements of scene verbalized during the description before the correct interpretation. Only successful recognition are considered;
3) Number of scene elements: It is the sum of the elements of scene verbalized during the during the interpretation, independently by the correctness of the interpretation.

Keywords: neuropsychological test, executive functions, video 360, cardboard, virtual reality, picture interpretation test