Darfler Michael, Cruz-Garza Jesus G, Kalantari Saleh
Department of Human Centered Design, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.
Brain Sci. 2022 Feb 15;12(2):269. doi: 10.3390/brainsci12020269.
The presence of external observers has been shown to affect performance on cognitive tasks, but the parameters of this impact for different types of tasks and the underlying neural dynamics are less understood. The current study examined the behavioral and brain activity effects of perceived observation on participants' visual working memory (VWM) in a virtual reality (VR) classroom setting, using the task format as a moderating variable. Participants ( = 21) were equipped with a 57-channel EEG cap, and neural data were collected as they completed two VWM tasks under two observation conditions (observed and not observed) in a within-subjects experimental design. The "observation" condition was operationalized through the addition of a static human avatar in the VR classroom. The avatar's presence was associated with a significant effect on extending the task response time, but no effect was found on task accuracy. This outcome may have been due to a ceiling effect, as the mean participant task scores were quite high. EEG data analysis supported the behavioral findings by showing consistent differences between the no-observation and observation conditions for one of the VWM tasks only. These neural differences were identified in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the occipital cortex (OC) regions, with higher theta-band activity occurring in the dlPFC during stimulus encoding and in the OC during response selection when the "observing" avatar was present. These findings provide evidence that perceived observation can inhibit performance during visual tasks by altering attentional focus, even in virtual contexts.
已有研究表明，外部观察者的存在会影响认知任务的表现，但对于不同类型任务的这种影响参数以及潜在的神经动力学，人们了解较少。当前研究在虚拟现实（VR）课堂环境中，以任务形式作为调节变量，考察了感知到的观察对参与者视觉工作记忆（VWM）的行为和大脑活动影响。参与者（n = 21）佩戴57通道脑电图帽，在一项被试内实验设计中，当他们在两种观察条件（被观察和未被观察）下完成两项VWM任务时收集神经数据。“观察”条件通过在VR课堂中添加一个静态人体化身来实现。化身的存在对延长任务响应时间有显著影响，但对任务准确性没有影响。这一结果可能是由于天花板效应，因为参与者的平均任务得分相当高。脑电图数据分析支持了行为学研究结果，仅在一项VWM任务中显示了无观察和观察条件之间的一致差异。这些神经差异在背外侧前额叶皮层（dlPFC）和枕叶皮层（OC）区域被识别出来，当“观察”化身出现时，在刺激编码期间dlPFC中出现较高的θ波段活动，在反应选择期间OC中出现较高的θ波段活动。这些发现提供了证据，表明即使在虚拟环境中，感知到的观察也可以通过改变注意力焦点来抑制视觉任务期间的表现。
