dynamic task switching

Cognitive rehabilitation is represented by the application of a lot of procedures in order to enhance development of skills and strategies necessary to overcome cognitive deficits. Computer-based tools can be fruitfully used in the assessment and rehabilitation of cognitive and executive functions. In particular Virtual Reality could play a key role in the rehabilitation of psychological functions due to a creation of synthetic environments where it is possible to carry on tasks very similar to the ones experienced in real contexts. After an analysis of the main characteristics and open issues of the PC and VR based cognitive rehabilitation, the major aim of this paper is to describe: a) the rationale for the use of Virtual Reality in this field and b) some VR tools (V-Store, V-Tol, V-Wcst) used with a particular

ssions: software programmers, computer and Web designers, and computer engineers at one end, and psychologists of different specialties at the other. The results of this collaboration have created exemplary works, represented by the VEPSY Updated (http://www.cybertherapy.info) project collaborators in the present collection of chapters. The combination of ergonomics (human engineering), software engineering and programming, and computer design and graphics, on the one hand, and psychological and medical interventions, on the other, brings about innovative perspectives and effective implementations, whose aim is to serve humanity by offering better vehicles with which to heal physical and emotional deficiencies and injuries. Although the projects presented in this volume represent significant breakthroughs, in the sense of creatively exploiting new technologies to attend to human miseries, further work is still required to fill the gap existing between the conceptualization of the cyb