In any built environment, there exist certain subtle stimuli that affect the occupants’ cognitive processes and performance. This research intends to identify: (1) what environmental stimuli an office building would generate that could affect the habitants’ cognitive ability, and (2) how the habitants react to these stimuli. The goals of the study are to develop a new method for using immersive virtual reality to represent a built environment for simulating environmental impact, and to discover factors that could influence habitants’ cognitive performance in a space. It is expected that the discoveries could advance the application of virtual reality to study human cognition in architecture.