The neuropsychological aspects of performance-based Internet navigation skills: A brief review of an emerging literature

Abstract

Objective: Over the last 20 years, the Internet has become a fundamental means by which many people with neurocognitive disorders manage their activities of daily living (e.g. shopping) and engage in health behaviors (e.g. appointment scheduling). The aim of this review is to summarize the emerging literature on the neuropsychology of performance-based tasks of Internet navigation skills (INS) as measures of everyday functioning.

Method: We performed a structured, qualitative review of the extant literature on INS using PRISMA guidelines.

Results: Seventeen peer-reviewed studies met inclusion criteria and their results suggest that performance-based tests of INS: (1) discriminate healthy adults from some neuropsychological populations [e.g. human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), multiple sclerosis (MS), traumatic brain injury (TBI)]; (2) are associated with performance-based tests of everyday functioning capacity, domain-specific declines in manifest everyday functioning, and self-reported Internet behavior, but not global manifest functional status; (3) correlate with standard clinical neuropsychological tests, particularly executive functions and episodic memory; (4) may relate to demographic factors, most notably age; and (5) have largely unknown psychometric properties (e.g. reliability).

Conclusion: This review provided early support for the construct validity of performance-based tasks of INS as modern measures of everyday functioning in neuropsychological populations. Future work is needed to refine these tasks, establish their psychometrics, and evaluate their construct validity in diverse populations, as well as to develop effective remediation and compensatory strategies to improve Internet functionality among persons with neurocognitive disorders.

Keywords:

• World Wide Web
• neuropsychological assessment
• health literacy
• everyday functioning
• disability

Acknowledgments

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, nor the United States Government. The authors are indebted to Clint Cushman and Drs. John DeLuca and Yael Goverover for their guidance in the early conceptualization of the Internet skills navigation tasks used in our laboratory.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* indicate articles that were included in the structured review.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by National Institutes of Health grant R21 MH098607.