Objective: People's mental workload and emotional responses were assessed while performing cognitive load demanding tasks in virtual and non-virtual environments.

Background: The virtual world is providing fascinating experiences by offering a perpetual and persistent multiuser environment. Yet users report several side effects and degraded performance during and after the exposure to the virtual environment. Therefore, there exists a necessity to measure people’s emotional response and cognitive workload in virtual and non-virtual environments.

Method: We designed a within-subject experiment and hired 20 participants to play Fruit Ninja 2 at two difficulty levels: easy and hard. An iPad presented the game in traditional 2D environment while a head mount device was used to project the game virtually. After each game the participants filled out the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and NASA Task Load Index (NASA TLX) questionnaire.

Results: The result revealed that, higher NASA TLX scores were associated with the virtual environment compared to the iPad environment. The Positive affect (PA) scores for the hard level were significantly smaller than the easy level at virtual environment. However, no significant differences were observed among the PA scores of two environments. The Negative Affect (NA) scores for virtual environment were significantly greater than the NA scores of iPad at the same difficulty level.

Conclusion: We concluded that, people feel higher mental workload and more distressed in virtual world compared to traditional iPad environment. Nevertheless, they express equal positiveness towards both environments.

Application: The results can help future researchers to take advantage of the metaverse to create emotion eliciting environment. Additionally, the findings of this study can guide healthcare professionals to tailor the metaverse environment as a digital therapeutic platform to treat individuals while maximizing their emotional engagement and optimizing cognitive workload.