Investigating Office Workers’ Performance and Physiological Responses in Virtual Reality Work Environments.

Technological advancements have reshaped people's perception of the office, transforming it from a fixed physical location into a dynamic concept where employees can work from virtually anywhere. As businesses expand, a growing number of workers now spend substantial portions of their work hours outside physical office spaces such airport lounges, hotels, cafeterias while traveling for meetings, office assignments, conferences, visiting clients or other offices of the firm across geographical boundaries. These workers rely heavily on portable devices, such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets, to remain productive in these settings. However, because these settings are not optimized for productivity, they potentially impact on cognitive performance, productivity, and the overall well-being of office workers. Virtual reality (VR) presents a potential solution to these challenges. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usability of VR work environments and their effects on office workers cognitive performance (speed and accuracy), physiological responses such as electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiography (ECG), electrodermal Activity (EDA), and subjective ratings. A within-subject, fully randomized experiment (n=20) was conducted, during which participants performed four sets of cognitive tasks designed to assess perception, working memory and reaction aspects of the human information processing in both VR and physical environment (PE). Results showed no significant differences in cognitive performance between environments across most tasks, except for reaction tasks, which were slightly better in the PE. Significant differences were observed in EEG and subjective measures, with better outcomes in VR across all tasks, and no gender effect observed. ECG and EDA measures showed no environmental effects, though gender differences were observed for certain heart rate variability parameters during specific tasks. These findings suggest that VR has the potential to support office work in non-traditional office environments, offering comparable or improved outcomes in specific measures of productivity and well-being.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.Sc.

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Grantor

University of Windsor

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Michael, Ifeoma Faith

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kim, Eunsik

Contributors dc:contributor

• scholarship@uwindsor.ca

Licence

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_CA

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14776/8822

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwindsor.scholaris.ca:20.500.14776/8822