HCC: Small: Understanding Situational and Individual Factors in Adaptation to Cybersickness

Iowa State University, Ames IA

Investigators

Abstract

One barrier to virtual reality (VR) playing a central role in the future of work, education, and entertainment is the fact that many VR users experience cybersickness. Symptoms of cybersickness are similar to those of motion sickness, and often include nausea, sweating, dizziness, headache, and eyestrain. Cybersickness can affect more than half of VR users within just 10 minutes of exposure, depending on details of the VR experience. Such a high rate of cybersickness will limit the accessibility of VR and its many applications, especially for the most susceptible people. However, people can adapt through repeated experiences with VR to reduce cybersickness symptoms over time. For instance, a person who is susceptible to cybersickness could experience a VR application (for example, an entertainment application) that gently exposes them to cybersickness over a short period of time so that they can later experience VR applications (for example, a job training application) without sickness. But questions remain. How much adaptation is needed? How sick do people have to be before they adapt? How does this vary by software application or by person? This project uses multi-day adaptation studies to explore whether the ideal scenario is plausible and what roadblocks exist. This research studies human adaptation to cybersickness to develop techniques that will make adaptation a useful tool to reduce cybersickness. One goal is to learn when and to what extent cybersickness adaptation in one VR application will lead to lower cybersickness in a different application. This carryover of adaptation across applications is referred to as generalization, and it would make cybersickness adaptation a more useful tool. The research will investigate whether generalization of adaptation depends on the method used to move through the virtual environment, such as real walking or using a joystick. Another goal of the research is to learn whether adaptation to cybersickness requires the user to initially experience substantial cybersickness, or whether adaptation can occur while minimizing the user’s discomfort using existing techniques for reducing the intensity of virtual environments. Finally, the research will examine whether all individuals equally benefit from adaptation, or whether characteristics of the person affect the rate of adaptation and whether adaptation generalizes across VR applications. These research goals are central to building our knowledge about cybersickness adaptation as well as developing realistic techniques that will help VR designers minimize the unpleasant experience of cybersickness for users and increase access to VR technology. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.