Toward Efficient Mixed Reality: Cognitive Load Mitigation and Performance Enhancement in Mixed Reality Tasks

Mitigating cognitive load in Mixed Reality (MR) remains an underexplored challenge; high cognitive load is often experienced when using MR headsets. We introduce lightweight visual and haptic mitigations, including scene dimming, focused blur, targeted spotlighting and paired haptic and audio cues to reduce cognitive load during MR tasks and evaluate them using NASA-TLX, Likert ratings, electrodermal activity, and electroencephalogram sensor data. Participants (N = 15) completed a proprioception-based reaction task in both Virtual Reality (VR) and pass-through MR, in which visual effects and haptic feedback were applied. Augmented MR conditions produced a noticeable 27% average reduction in NASA-TLX workload scores compared to non-augmented conditions, with EDA and EEG sensor data showing decreases consistent with subjective results. These data were analysed alongside performance data on average response time and task specific performance metrics, with participants showing decreased average reaction time (by 0.2 s on average) and increased average button presses (+5) in the proprioception based task. The primary contribution is a low overhead mitigation approach for reducing cognitive load in MR interactions, with the secondary contribution being a multimodal MR/VR evaluation combining subjective workload, sensor based measures and performance metrics. These findings indicate that simple, targeted visual and haptic cues can meaningfully lower cognitive load and improve task performance in MR environments.