Interaction of Cognitive and Affective Load Within a Virtual City

Spatial navigation is an important aspect of everyday life but may be negatively impacted by both cognitive and affective load. Cognitive and affective load may be measured via autonomic arousal and increased load may lead to reduced navigational abilities. 53 college students (64.0% female; M age = 19.62) participated in the Virtual Reality Paced Serial Auditory Addition Task (VR-PASAT). Participants followed guides through different areas of the virtual environment (VE). In some areas participants completed the PASAT, high load, and in other areas they simply followed the guides, low load. Some participants were instructed beforehand they would perform a navigate task, increasing load. Results suggested that several psychophysiological measures including skin conductance and inter-beat intervals were impacted by increased load while others were related to the interactions between load and zone order. Awareness of the navigation task led to worse performance on the VR-PASAT, and high load decreased navigational performance. The VR-PASAT was used to implement a VE to manipulate cognitive load. This study may be useful for the creation of adaptive systems because it demonstrates that psychophysiological metrics can assess cognitive and affective load, which may impact navigation within a VE, and navigational task awareness may interact with load.