Kia Kiana, Hwang Jaejin, Kim Jeong Ho
School of Biological and Population Health Sciences, College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR.
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL.
Ergonomics. 2025 Aug;68(8):1207-1221. doi: 10.1080/00140139.2024.2396038. Epub 2024 Aug 28.
This study evaluated the effects of target sizes on biomechanical and cognitive load and the performance of virtual reality (VR) interactions. In a repeated-measures laboratory study, each of the twenty participants performed standardised VR tasks with three different target sizes: small, medium, and large. During the VR tasks, biomechanical load in the neck and shoulders (joint angles, joint moments, and muscle activity), cognitive load (perceived workload and cognitive stress), and task performance (completion time) were collected. The neck and shoulder joint angles, joint moments, and muscle activities were greater with the large targets compared to the medium and small targets. Moreover, the larger VR targets caused greater temporal demand and longer task completion time compared to the other target sizes. These findings indicate that target sizes in VR interfaces play important roles in biomechanical and cognitive load as well as task performance.
