Virtual Water Task: Procedures and Protocols for the Assessment of Spatial Navigation and Memory

The original Morris water maze (Morris, 1981) has been coined the “gold standard” task for examining spatial navigation in animals. The general procedure of the maze involves a circular pool filled approximately half-way with water. An animal is then tasked with locating and recalling the position of a hidden “platform”, which is submerged below the water surface in a fixed location. The platform has minimal visual presence in the pool, meaning the location of the platform must be found, learned and recalled from memory. Recently, the task has been translated using virtual reality for use with humans (virtual water task), to investigate similar cognitive mechanisms examined using the animal version of the task. However, there are multiple different variations of the virtual water task scattered across the human literature. These versions vary in both environmental design (e.g., different shaped arenas or platform sizes) and testing procedures (e.g., 1 minute trial times or no inter-trial intervals), which all influence a person’s ability to perform the task. Whilst the virtual version of this task possesses the same potential to become the “gold standard” for examining spatial cognition in humans, comparing and replicating results across research labs has shown to be incredibly difficult due the lack of standardised procedures and protocols. In this paper we present protocols to help with the standardisation of this task. We recommend practices and procedures for researching specific cognitive processes in humans, as well as reporting guidelines, recommended analyses and expected results.