JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) enables the manipulation of visual, auditory, and cognitive demands to create training conditions that adequately challenge users. However, the effect of different levels of these demands in IVR on task performance, perceived workload, physiological activity, and behavioral strategies is still unclear.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to investigate how varying levels of visual, auditory, and cognitive demands in IVR affect task performance, perceived workload, physiological responses, and behavioral strategies.

Methods:

We conducted an experiment in which 22 participants picked listed products from shelves under seven conditions: Baseline (no added demands), Visual demands (virtual human characters; low, high), Auditory demands (background sounds; low, high), and Mental demands (secondary 0-back and 2-back tasks). We measured heart rate, task performance (total products collected), and assessed mental demand and effort via a questionnaire. We also analyzed behavioral measures, including head stillness duration and time spent looking at areas of interest.

Results:

We found that high cognitive demands degrade performance, increase perceived workload, and induce changes in behavior, with participants spending more time checking the list in the Mental high condition than in Baseline. High auditory demands also increased perceived workload, whereas visual demands mainly caused distraction compared to Baseline.

Conclusions:

Behavioral responses observed under high cognitive demands suggest that IVR systems could adapt complexity based on real-time monitoring of user behaviors.