Emotional Reaction and Mental Workload in Virtual and Non-virtual Environment: A Pilot Study

The advanced platform of virtual reality (VR) provides fascinating experiences by offering a beyond reality, perpetual and persistent multiuser environment. However, users express dissatisfaction towards VR due to ocular problems, headache, disorientation, balance distribution, nausea, and degraded performance during exposure. Therefore, there exists a necessity to measure people’s emotional responses and cognitive workload in virtual and non-virtual environment. Thus, we plan to measure 30 individuals’ emotional responses and mental workload while they perform cognitively demanding tasks in virtual and non-virtual 2D environments. Until now, we hired 8 participants to play Fruit Ninja 2 at two difficulty levels: easy and hard. An iPad was used to play the game in a non-virtual 2D environment, while a head mount device was used to project the game virtually. After each game, the participants filled out the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and NASA Task Load Index (TLX) questionnaires. The Friedman test result suggested that there were no significant differences between the Positive Affect (PA) scores of the game in both virtual and non-virtual environments. However, marginally significant differences were observed between the NASA TLX scores, and higher scores were associated with the hard level in the virtual environment, while lower scores were found for the easy level in the non-virtual environment. This test result indicates that people express positiveness towards the virtual environment regardless of their high mental workload. This conclusion was drawn based on the findings of a pilot study, and to obtain a better understanding, we are still recruiting participants.