Investigating Virtual Reality for Alleviating Human-Computer Interaction Fatigue: A Multimodal Assessment and Comparison with Flat Video

Xinyi Wang , Jing Qu , Lingguo Bu

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics +

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March 10, 2025

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

Prolonged human-computer interaction (HCI) causes fatigue. Virtual Reality (VR) and video can alleviate this fatigue, with VR showing greater prefrontal cortex activation during recovery, suggesting its potential for fatigue management.

Area Of Science

Neuroscience
Human-Computer Interaction
Virtual Reality

Background

Prolonged human-computer interaction (HCI) fatigue increases mental illness risk and operational errors.
Virtual Reality (VR) offers immersive, multi-sensory experiences that can enhance cognition.

Purpose Of The Study

Develop multimodal evaluation methods for HCI fatigue.
Explore VR's fatigue-relieving effects compared to traditional video.

Main Methods

Collected electroencephalogram (EEG), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), eye movement, and subjective data.
Utilized a modular design and data flow architecture for preprocessing and analysis.
Compared fatigue relief between VR and flat video interventions using natural grassland scenes with music.

Main Results

Multimodal data validated HCI fatigue assessment: increased prefrontal cortex Theta band activation, decreased Alpha/Theta band connectivity, reduced pupil diameter, increased blink frequency, and higher subjective scores.
Both VR and video reduced fatigue, indicated by decreased Alpha band activity in the LPFC and lower subjective scores.
VR group showed significantly higher Alpha and Theta band prefrontal cortex activation during recovery compared to the video group.

Conclusions

Multimodal data effectively characterizes HCI fatigue.
VR demonstrates significant potential for fatigue management and productivity enhancement in various applications.
VR offers superior recovery benefits compared to video in certain neurological aspects.