Virtual reality spatial task performance estimation through cognitive load: EEG and eye tracking study

Psychophysiology. 2020. Vol. 57. No. S1. P. S69–S69.

Tatiana Ledneva, Kovalev A.

Spatial abilities (SA) are essential for many cognitive activities. Insufficiency of SA can provoke additional cognitive load (CL) while solving spatial task. However, most research are made on the material of 2D objects. Still SA are essential in 3D environments, e.g., in VR. This study was aimed to find out the relationship between the level of SA and the emerging of CL when solving a spatial tasks with 3D objects in VR. The hypothesis: the higher the SA level, the more effective the subjects will be in performing the 3D task. Effectiveness was composed of task score and an indicator of the induced CL. 17 participants (9M; 8F) performed a spatial task of geometric shapes rotation with timing in a virtual environment presented in HTC Vive Pro Eye. Before the experiment participants passed the “King’s Challenge” (Rimfeld et al., 2017) SA test. The level of CL was estimated by beta band spectral power. Also the scan‐path complexity (real‐to–perfect path length ratio while finding the object) was used for CL level estimating. A positive correlation (r = .67) was found between the level of SA and the beta‐activity in the central and parietal areas. The group with low SA showed complicated scan‐paths. It was found that people with different levels of SA demonstrated close task scores, which is in consistent with the ability‐as‐compensator hypothesis (Lee et al., 2014). However, participants significantly varied in required cognitive resources (p < .05). Thus, measures of SA combined with eye tracking and EEG provide to estimate the effectiveness of VR spatial task performance.

Keywords: cognitive load, VR, spatial abilities