Mobile phones are the most portable of all testing
platforms. Tests can run on any JavaŽ phone. Large numbers of people
already own suitable phones and are familiar with using them. Thus large
scale studies involving data collection during the person's daily life are
practical. The phone can automatically transmit results to the server
allowing data to be reviewed immediately. The main limitation is screen
size, but all the core tests can be run on a standard mobile phone. The
test illustrated on the left is the arrow flanker
task. The response is a
left or right key press corresponding to the direction of the
central arrow.
The test on the right is the arrow RT
task, a very simple psychomotor task which requires a left or right
button press corresponding to the direction of the arrow. This differs
from the flanker task in that there is no distracting information. We
have used this test in a study on the effects of intravenous infusions of
propofol in patients. This was recently presented at the Society
for Intravenous Anaesthesia
Mobile phones are useful in a number of different settings
1. Everyday life studies, where users carry the phones around, and are tested
over a period of days or weeks. In this setting, data are generally transmitted
over the network to a central server, where they are available for rapid review.
An example of this is the recently completed study
looking at effects of alcohol consumption on performance
2. Field studies, where investigators take phones into a research location
such as a pub, club, or workplace, and recruit participants within that setting.
Unlike the everyday setting, the testing is supervised, and in general these are
cross-sectional studies - a single assessment of function is made. An example is
the field study on alcohol
carried out in Edinburgh pubs
3. Laboratory-type studies where for one reason or another a PC-based test
system is not suitable. We cal this the Portable Laboratory. Data are typically
stored on the phone and uploaded to a PC, rather than transmitted via the
network. Here is some more on the mobile
laboratory.
Tests for mobile phone projects are set up as custom packages. Tests are also
available for tablet computers .
Brian Tiplady is a pioneer in developing this type of application for the
mobile phone. Some of the data has been presented at recent scientific meetings.
The first
(Tiplady 2004,
British Psychological Society) was an initial evaluation in which a
mobile phone was used in a lab-based study. The second (Tiplady,
Paterson, Scholey 2005, European Behavioural Pharmacology Society)
took the mobile phone into peoples' homes, and assessed cognitive function
in an everyday setting. The phone automatically sent data back to the
central server. Both these studies showed that reaction time increased
with task complexity, as illustrated on the right.. This helps to confirm
that volunteers are "on-task", especially important when testing
is in an unsupervised environment.
Mobile phones can also be used to administer mood scales, for example
visual analogue scales. Paper scales are usually 100 mm long, while
limitations of screen size means that scales on a mobile phone are much
shorter. A study presented recently at the British
Psychological Society showed that 21 mm scales on a mobile phone are
just as sensitive to change as 100 mm paper scales
