Experimental control and minimalism are central concepts in experimental psychology. To preserve both, behavioral experiments are typically conducted on a computer display, using response times (RT) and accuracy of keypresses as measures of cognitive activity. Virtual Reality (VR) offers an ecologically valid yet controlled alternative, allowing stimulus presentation in an immersive 3D environment and spatiotemporal trajectory tracking of hand movements. We investigated the benefits of VR by comparing a classical experiment to its VR counterpart. Classical effects of working memory load on RT in an n-back task were reproduced in VR, in the Halfway and Arrival times of response trajectories. To understand the dynamics of this response behavior, we employed Survival Analyses. Our analysis showed overall consistency in temporal dynamics between classical RT and trajectory measures. This consistency cross-validates classical and VR results. Survival analysis on classical RT showed some surprising effects, namely a bias for sameness in early responses that is resolved in later ones. These observations led us to propose an innovative spatiotemporal survival analysis of response trajectories. The graphs produced by this method show not only when, but also where in the trajectories effects such as the early response bias arise. We conclude that while classical and VR-based results are mutually consistent, spatiotemporal survival analysis shows the latter to be more informative and capable of enhancing our understanding of response processes.