Unraveling the Dynamics of Mental and Visuospatial Workload in Virtual Reality Environments
Name
computers-13-00246.pdf
Size
5.48 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
34537aa7bcb4cf0f7afd25b9df4f5ed4
Author(s)
Bernal, Guillermo
Jung, Hahrin
Yassı, İsmail Emir
Hidalgo, Nelson
Alemu, Yodahe
Barnes-Diana, Tyler
Maes, Pattie
Date Issued
September 26, 2024
Journal
Computers
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Citation
Bernal, G.; Jung, H.; Yassı, İ.E.; Hidalgo, N.; Alemu, Y.; Barnes-Diana, T.; Maes, P. Unraveling the Dynamics of Mental and Visuospatial Workload in Virtual Reality Environments. Computers 2024, 13, 246.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Mental workload, visuospatial processes and autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity are highly intertwined phenomena crucial for achieving optimal performance and improved mental health. Virtual reality (VR) serves as an effective tool for creating variety of controlled environments to better probe these features. This study investigates the relationship between mental and visuospatial workload, physiological arousal, and performance during a high-demand task in a VR environment. We utilized a modified version of the popular computer game TETRIS as the task, involving 25 participants, and employed a physiological computing VR headset that simultaneously records multimodal physiological data. Our findings indicate a broadband increase in EEG power just prior to a helper event, followed by a spike of visuospatial engagement (parietal alpha and beta 0-1-3 s) occurring concurrently with a decrease in mental workload (frontal theta 2–4 s), and subsequent decreases in visuospatial engagement (parietal theta at 14 s) and physiological arousal (HRV at 20 s). Regression analysis indicated that the subjective relief and helpfulness of the helper intervention was primarily driven by a decrease in physiological arousal and an increase in visuospatial engagement. These findings highlight the importance of multimodal physiological recording in rich environments, such as real world scenarios and VR, to understand the interplay between the various physiological responses involved in mental and visuospatial workload.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3390/computers13100246
