The use of virtual reality in spatial cognition evaluation has been growing rapidly, mainly because of its potential applications in the training and diagnosis of cognitive impairment and its ability to blend experimental control and ecological validity. However, there are still many gray areas on virtual reality, notably on the sense of presence and its complex relationship to task performance. Performance in VR is often suggested to be influenced by other human factors including, amongst others, cybersickness, gender, video game experience, and field dependence. Would an individual experiencing more presence systematically show better performance? This study aimed to be part of a framework of virtual reality as this question is fundamental for rigorous assessment and diagnostics, and particularly in the spatial cognition field. Forty-eight healthy young subjects were recruited to take part in a virtual spatial cognition evaluation. Spatial cognition performance, along with their level of presence, cybersickness, video game experience, gender and field dependence, were measured. Matrix correlations were used, along with linear regressions and mediation analysis. Results show that presence promoted performance on the spatial cognition evaluation, while cybersickness symptoms hindered it, notably among women. The presence-performance relationship was not mediated by other human factors. Video game experience significantly predicted both sense of presence and cybersickness, the latter two being negatively correlated. Even if women experienced more negative symptoms than men, gender appears less informative than cybersickness and video game experience. Field dependence was not associated with any other variable. Results are discussed by confronting two theories of cognition (representational vs. ecological), highlighting that virtual reality is not a simple transposition of reality but truly a new paradigm with its own biases favoring some individuals more than others, and that some human factors have to be controlled for rigorous uses of virtual environments, particularly for spatial cognition evaluation.

Field dependence–independence (FDI) is a psychological construct determining an individual’s approach of the perception–cognition coupling. In virtual reality (VR) context, several studies suggest that an individual’s perceptive style is susceptible to shift toward a more FI mode through down-weighting of conflicting visual cues. The present study proposes to investigate the potential flexible nature of FDI following a virtual immersion and to assess if this flexibility might be associated with the subjective experience of VR. 86 participants explored a real-world–like virtual environment for approximately 10 min. FDI levels were measured before and after the VR exposure using the rod-and-frame test. Their subjective experience of VR was measured a posteriori (cybersickness and sense of presence) and used in order to build two experimental groups via a cluster analysis. The results showed that only participants with a poor subjective experience of VR (i.e., a low level of sense of presence associated with a high level of cybersickness) significantly shifted to a more FI mode, which is discussed as a sensory re-weighting mechanism. Pragmatical applications are discussed, and future studies are outlined, based on the conclusion that FDI might be more flexible than we thought, which could shed light on the psychophysiology of VR.

This study aimed to compare a neuropsychological test tapping into executive control function, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), performed in either traditional paper-and-pencil (PP) or virtual reality (VR) modality, and to determine the role of human factors (i.e. sense of presence, cybersickness, field (in)dependence and video game experience) as contributors to performance and perceived mental effort. Indeed, if virtual assessment might bring the ecological dimension to controlled laboratory research, it is often suggested that human factors might bias performance. WCST performance and its associated perceived mental effort were compared between the two modalities (N = 107). In the VR modality (N = 52), a correlation matrix was conducted as well as a cluster analysis in order to build two experimental groups, or profiles, based on their subjective experience of VR. WCST performance and perceived mental effort were then compared between these two groups while controlling for age and education. Results outlined a similar WCST performance and perceived mental effort between the PP and VR modalities. However, when comparing the two VR groups, results suggest that an unfavorable profile for VR, i.e. less sense of presence, more cybersickness, more visual field dependence and less video game experience, is associated with greater perceived mental effort. These experimental findings enable outlining a new conceptual and methodological framework for the assessment of executive control task performance in VR.Results could help users to take human factors into consideration in order to fully exploit or predict the benefits of this tool.

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The question of the relationship between the sense of presence and performance in virtual reality is fundamental for anyone wishing to use the tool methodologically. Indeed, if the sense of presence can modify performance per se, then individual factors affecting the human-computer interaction might have repercussions on performance, despite being unrelated to it. After a discussion on the sense of presence and the particularities it provokes, this work studies the psychophysiology of virtual reality. This in virtuo experience is understood according to a constitutive and reciprocal relationship with the subject's cognitive profile, made up of all the human, contextual and motivational factors impacting the processing of immersion. The role and importance of performance in virtual reality is described in this framework in such a way as to be studied methodologically. The presence-performance relationship is discussed based on previous works and analyzed in terms of attentional resources. Finally, the degree of ecological validity of the performance is described as the factor modulating the relationship between the sense of presence and performance (the Phi Angle). Limitations, applications and test hypotheses of the model are presented. This work aims to help the conceptualization of virtual reality, but also to improve its methodological framework.