Neurocognitive and psychophysiological analysis of human performance within virtual reality environments

Monitoring the neurocognitive and psychophysiological activity of persons operating within a complex environment poses exacting measurement challenges. Three experiments are reported in this paper. In these experiments we made use of VRCPAT to assess persons' neurocognitive and psychophysiological responses to high-fidelity, immersive virtual environments. The first experiment provided continued support for the validity of the VRCPAT as a measure of learning and memory through the use of an increased sample size. In the second experiment we aimed at assessing whether an increase in stimulus complexity would result in a significant decrease in performance on attentional tasks. We also wanted to see whether an increase in stimulus intensity would result in a significant decrease in performance on attentional tasks. The third experiment looked at participants' psychophysiological responses in both low and high immersion virtual environments.