Digital Diagnostics of Everyday- and Work-Relevant Communication after Brain Injury (DigiDi)

DigiDi is a joint research project of Bielefeld University and the University of Cologne that develops Commbi (Cologne–Bielefeld Communication Assessment Combined), a novel diagnostic instrument for people with cognitive communication disorders (CCDs) after acquired brain injury. Such disorders, e.g., impairments in attention or social cognition, massively affect everyday interaction and participation in work and social life, yet they frequently remain undetected, especially in mild-to-moderate cases where symptoms only surface in everyday situations with high cognitive demands (e.g., background noise, multiple conversation partners).

Commbi combines two complementary components:

• Commbi-PROM: a patient-reported outcome measure for the self-assessment of communicative participation and quality of life
• Commbi-FUNC: a function-oriented assessment of everyday- and work-relevant communication skills in virtual reality

Our contribution

The Bielefeld group is responsible for the development of the VR-based Commbi-FUNC component. This includes the design and implementation of virtual environments and virtual conversation agents that simulate realistic everyday communication situations under controlled, standardized test conditions. Using VR, critical everyday factors, such as the number of interlocutors, background noise, or high cognitive load, can be systematically varied and reliably assessed.

Since October 2026, the project has entered its second phase, DigiDi 2.0, focusing on the finalization and clinical testing of the instrument. The project is conducted in participatory research, with affected persons and their families involved in the conception process, and is advised by an interdisciplinary Trial Steering Committee.

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