Abstract
Illusory self-motion often provokes motion sickness, which is commonly explained in terms of an inter-sensory conflict that is not in accordance with previous experience. Here we address the influence of cognition in motion sickness and show that such a conflict is not provocative when the observer believes that the motion illusion is indeed actually occurring. Illusory self-motion and motion sickness were elicited in healthy human participants who were seated on a stationary rotary chair inside a rotating optokinetic drum. Participants knew that both chair and drum could rotate but were unaware of the actual motion stimulus. Results showed that motion sickness was correlated with the discrepancy between participants’ perceived self-motion and participants’ beliefs about the actual motion. Together with the general motion sickness susceptibility, this discrepancy accounted for 51% of the variance in motion sickness intensity. This finding sheds a new light on the causes of visually induced motion sickness and suggests that it is not governed by an inter-sensory conflict per se, but by beliefs concerning the actual self-motion. This cognitive influence provides a promising tool for the development of new countermeasures.
Highlights
There is a growing body of evidence showing the bi-directional interactions between cognition and vestibular processing
Motion illusions are characterized by a discrepancy between what is perceived and what is happening. We propose that this discrepancy plays a key role in motion sickness evoked by motion illusions
While leaving participants unaware of the actual motion stimulus, we investigated whether variation in motion sickness levels between participants could be explained by variation in perception of and beliefs about selfmotion, and the discrepancy between the two
Summary
There is a growing body of evidence showing the bi-directional interactions between cognition and vestibular processing (see [1] for a review). The cognitive context of the motion stimuli is known to affect motion perception, as has been shown for the compelling sense of self-motion that can be induced by moving visual, or to a lesser extent, auditory stimuli (i.e., vection). This self-motion illusion is stronger and/or occurs faster if the moving stimuli are associated objects that are normally stable in the environment and the participant is positioned on a device that allows. We explore the effects of cognition on a different aspect of vestibular processing, namely motion sickness. If motion sickness can be influenced by the cognitive aspects described above, this would offer new methods to counteract this malady
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