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PurposeVirtual reality (VR) games are increasingly being explored as tools for physical and mental rehabilitation, yet their cognitive and psychological demands relative to conventional 2D games remain insufficiently understood. In rehabilitation-oriented tasks, factors such as mental workload (MWL), situational awareness (SA) and affect play a critical role in adherence and safety. As an initial, pre-clinical step, this study examines how these demands differ between immersive VR and traditional 2D gameplay. Design/methodology/approachA within-subjects study was conducted with 21 healthy adults who performed game-based tasks of varying difficulty in both VR and 2D environments. MWL, affect and SA were assessed after each condition using self-assessment questionnaires. FindingsCompared with the 2D environment, VR resulted in significantly higher overall MWL, effort and physical demand, particularly at the easier task difficulty. VR was also associated with higher negative affect at the easy level; however, negative affect did not further increase at the high level, while positive affect remained stable across difficulty levels. Originality/valueThe findings offer foundational insight into the cognitive and affective demands associated with immersive VR gameplay prior to clinical application. The results underscore the need to balance workload, task difficulty and emotional intensity in the design of rehabilitation-oriented VR games, especially in scenarios where exercises are inherently challenging and sustained engagement is essential.
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The Effects of Secondary Task Demands on Cybersickness in Active Exploration Virtual Reality Experiences
Active exploration in virtual reality (VR) involves users navigating immersive virtual environments, going from one place to another. While navigating, users often engage in secondary tasks that require attentional resources, as in the case of distracted driving. Inspired by research generally studying the effects of task demands on cybersickness (CS), we investigated how the attentional demands specifically associated with secondary tasks performed during exploration affect CS. Downstream of this, we studied how increased attentional demands from secondary tasks affect spatial memory and navigational performance. We discuss the results of a multi-factorial between-subjects study, manipulating a secondary task's demand across two levels and studying its effects on CS in two different sickness-inducing levels of an exploration experience. The secondary task's demand was manipulated by parametrically varying n in an aural n-back working memory task and the provocativeness of the experience was manipulated by varying how frequently users experienced a yaw-rotational reorientation effect during the exploration. Results revealed that increases in the secondary task's demand increased sickness levels, also resulting in a higher temporal onset rate, especially when the experience was not already highly sickening. Increased attentional demand from the secondary task also vitiated navigational performance and spatial memory. Overall, increased demands from secondary tasks performed during navigation produce deleterious effects on the VR experience.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2007435
- PAR ID:
- 10527837
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1077-2626
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2745 to 2755
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2024.3372080
