UniCog is an online automated cognitive assessment battery designed for people of all language, cultural and educational backgrounds to provide a fairer and more accessible way to assess cognitive functions.

Summary of the project and objectives

The main aim of this project is to determine whether UniCog provides an accurate and reliable measure of cognitive function in people aged 16 years and over.

Specifically, we aim to:

• Compare UniCog with well-established cognitive assessments to determine whether it measures cognitive function accurately.
• Evaluate how well individual UniCog tasks assess specific areas of cognition, such as memory, attention and executive function.
• Explore how acceptable and easy UniCog is to use for participants through questionnaires and user feedback.
• Investigate whether factors such as age, sex, education and socioeconomic background influence performance on UniCog or people's experience of using it.
• Collect information from healthy volunteers to establish reference values that will help clinicians interpret UniCog scores in future clinical practice.
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Why the project is important

Many people experience changes in their thinking and memory as they age or as a result of neurological or mental health conditions. Identifying these changes early is important because it allows people to receive the right support, treatment and rehabilitation as soon as possible.

However, many cognitive assessments currently used in healthcare are influenced by a person's language, educational background or cultural experiences. This means that some people may not receive an accurate assessment of their cognitive abilities. In addition, many assessments are time-consuming, require specialist training to administer and can be difficult for people who experience communication difficulties.

UniCog has been developed to help address these challenges. It is a digital cognitive assessment that uses symbols and images instead of language-based questions, making it more accessible for people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The assessment is easy to administer and provides automated scoring and reports to support healthcare professionals in making timely clinical decisions.

UniCog assesses eight important areas of cognition, including attention, memory, processing speed, executive function, visuospatial abilities and learning. Its digital format also has the potential to reduce unnecessary travel by allowing assessments to be completed remotely when appropriate, while supporting ongoing monitoring throughout a person's care.

How we plan to achieve this

We aim to recruit 250 healthy volunteers from the local community to take part in a single in-person visit at the Institute of Mental Health.

The visit will last approximately 90 minutes. Participants will be asked to complete a series of well-established cognitive assessments alongside the new UniCog assessment, followed by some short questionnaires.

The established assessments include tests of memory, attention, language and thinking skills that are commonly used in clinical practice. The UniCog assessment includes a range of digital tasks that measure different aspects of cognition, such as attention, memory, processing speed and executive function.

At the end of the visit, participants will be invited to share their feedback on UniCog, including how easy the assessment was to use and their overall experience. This feedback will help us understand whether UniCog is acceptable, accessible and practical for future use in healthcare and research.

Who is supporting the project

BMedSci students, Research assistant, technical support from University of Reading, and external clinical expert from Bangor University.

Get involved:

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