Virtual teams have been rapidly adopted by organisations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, sparking scholarly interest in their cognitive aspects. This study bibliometrically analyses the state of cognition in virtual teams research, drawing from 1,229 documents in the Scopus database published from 1990 to 2022. Performance analysis and science mapping are used to precisely outline the field's evolution. Bibliometric indicators, such as the number of citations received and h-index are used to perform performance analysis on Microsoft Excel. VOSviewer software is used for science mapping the bibliographic data based on co-citations, bibliographic coupling, and keyword co-occurrence to categorise pertinent research in terms of publications, authors, institutions, and countries. The findings reveal significant research growth from 2020 to 2022. Jarvenpaa emerged as the most influential author while the USA is the most influential country. The field's evolution is characterised by three distinct generations: 1990–2000, 2001–2011, and 2012–2022.