The Metaverse and Its Effect on Human Perception and Behavior

Virtual environments have many distinct characteristics that differentiate them from the real environment. Given its unique characteristics, we can refer to the metaverse as a sociotechnical system and ask what design considerations should be applied in this system. The current chapter introduces four use cases studied in our laboratory in recent years. The first use case deals with how good we are at monitoring our abilities in the virtual environment, which can be described as an environment that almost, but not entirely, reproduces the real world. The second use case explores how we can move in the virtuality continuum to achieve better decision-making and numeracy understanding. The third use case deals with collaboration with avatars compared to collaboration with humans remotely. The fourth and last use case evaluates the influence of training cognitive flexibility in the real world by simultaneously being in several virtual worlds. Then, the practical implications of a human-system integration approach are considered when interacting with the metaverse and the real world following that experience.