Exploring neural and peripheral physiological correlates of simulator sickness

To determine the incidence, severity, and predisposing factors to simulator sickness (SS) when using the neck virtual reality (VR) device in asymptomatic individuals to understand the risk of provoking SS in the development of neck VR as a rehabilitation tool. Thirty-two participants used the VR system. Postural stability was measured before and after each VR module [range of motion (ROM), velocity, and accuracy]. The duration of each module was recorded, and participants reported their SS using a visual analogue scale (SS---VAS)/100 mm. Following the VR assessment, participants completed the Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (MSSQ) (child and adult subsections) and Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). The incidence of motion sickness during the VR immersion was 28 %, and the mean severity was 17.2 mm on VAS. There was a significant difference in ROM time, total time, MSSQ score, and SSQ score (p < 0.05) between those who reported any level of SS---VAS and those with no SS---VAS. The SS---VAS score displayed significant positive correlations with SSQ score, change in postural stability time pre to post, ROM time, and total time. Results indicate a relatively high incidence but low severity of SS which was associated with the MSSQ child subsection score and exposure time.

This article discusses the effects of Animated Virtual Actors (AVAs) visual complexity on Simulator Sickness (SS) in Virtual Reality (VR) applications. SS is one of the major disadvantages of VR simulations. Previous research has shown that visual complexity correlates with SS. Yet complex AVAs are increasingly used along with real-time graphics. Minimising SS for a VR application is thus beneficial. A series of VR simulations were created to teach second-year psychology students about the navigational capabilities of desert ants with different levels of AVA’s visual complexity: ?at, cartoon, or life- like. We predicted that more complex AVAs would induce more SS. The results contradicted the predictions, with no significant differences in SS between groups as a function of the AVAs visual complexity. Moreover, our methods succeeded in low overall levels of SS in all the simulations. Possible explanations and our future research directions are discussed.

Virtual reality (VR) has seen tremendous advances in head-mounted displays (HMDs), optics, media quality, and other improvements that facilitate immersive experiences. With the occurrence of new technologies like Cloud VR and networked VR video services, applications such as 360° video streaming are becoming more popular within the broader consumer markets. As a result, VR content is accessible to customers with rather different levels of experiences with immersive media, i.e., never, sometimes, or often use of VR. The question, therefore, arises to which degree simulator sickness is induced to viewers depending on their experiences with VR on HMDs. In this paper, simulator sickness is evaluated for 360° videos that were shown on an HTC Vive Pro HMD to participants having different levels of experience with VR on HMDs. The modified absolute category rating with hidden reference (M-ACR-HR) method was used in a subjective experiment for video quality assessment within two subsequent sessions along with a simulator sickness questionnaire (SSQ). A statistical analysis of the SSQ scores is performed to reveal the relationship between simulator sickness and participants’ experiences with VR regarding: (1) Individual symptoms, (2) Pairwise comparison of symptoms, and (3) Symptom clusters of nausea, oculomotor, disorientation, and total score. It is shown that the simulator sickness symptoms, in general, are slightly or rarely perceived across the different experience levels for the selected 360° videos. The results indicate that the reported simulator sickness increases in the second session for participants that never used VR on HMDs. Sufficiently long breaks between sessions should therefore be accounted for in the M-ACR-HR method to avoid that simulator sickness influences quality rating.

The basic question this research addressed was, how does simulator sickness vary with simulated motion frequency? Participants were 11 women and 19 men, 20 to 63 years of age. A visual self-motion frequency response curve was determined using a Chattecx posture platform with a VR4 head-mounted display (HMD) or a back-projected dome. That curve and one for vestibular self-motion specify a frequency range in which vestibular and visual motion stimuli could produce conflicting self-motion cues. Using a rotating chair and the HMD, a third experiment supported (p < .01) the hypothesis that conflicting cues at the frequency of maximum "crossover" between the curves (about 0.06 Hz) would be more likely to evoke simulator sickness than would conflicting cues at a higher frequency. Actual or potential applications of this work include a preliminary design guidance curve that indicates the frequency range of simulated motion that is likely to evoke simulator or virtual reality sickness; for simulators intended to operate in this frequency range, appropriate simulator sickness interventions should be considered during the design process.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies are increasingly becoming integral to educational and training contexts, yet comparative analyses of their effects on simulator sickness and user experience remain limited. Recent advancements in AR/VR headsets, such as the Meta Quest 3, now allow virtual and augmented reality experiences to be delivered through a single device. However, previous research comparing user experiences between virtual and augmented reality did not account for the use of a unified headset in their investigation. This study aims to investigate the differential effects of AR and VR on users’ simulator sickness, engagement, mental workload, and performance, and usability of the training environment. A training module was developed in Unity 3D for both AR and VR focusing on 3D printing using a powder bed fusion (PBF) printer. A within-subject assignment of factors explored the comparison of ten participants’ experiences regarding simulation sickness and printing experiences and performances. Each participant went through the same tasks under simulated environments to explore the implications of AR and VR on user experience. The study found that there was no statistically significant difference in motivation and user experiences between AR and VR using Meta Quest 3. Moreover, the users experienced comparatively higher simulator sickness in VR than in AR. These findings will not only help to fill the gaps in comparative studies of AR and VR but will also help to inform future technological deployments in educational and professional training scenarios.

The use of micro-unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in military operations is rapidly increasing. However, limitations in the design of their human-machine interfaces (HMI) can limit their effectiveness. We propose that presenting the HMI of a micro-UAV through a head-mounted display (HMD) device is a viable alternative to using a flat screen display, however, factors such as simulator sickness and discomfort may reduce their usability. The present experiment compared participants’ target detection performance, usability ratings, and levels of simulator sickness when using either a HMD or a flat screen display in a micro-UAV simulation. Overall, there was no significant difference in performance between the two display conditions. However, participants reported significantly higher levels of mental workload, physical discomfort, and simulator sickness when using the HMD. Further, previous experience with virtual reality devices or video games did not reduce the levels of mental workload or simulator sickness experienced during the task. The results demonstrate that, at present, HMDs may not be suitable display devices for performing visual search tasks whilst flying micro-UAVs in urban environments.

Simulation sickness is a condition of physiological discomfort felt during or after exposure to any virtual environment. An immersive virtual environment can be accessed through a head mounted display, which provides the user with an entrance to the virtual world. The onset of simulation sickness is one of the main disadvantages of virtual reality (VR) systems. The study presented in this paper aims to expand the knowledge on how gender affects simulation sickness in an innovative VR driving environment. A between-subjects design (n = 62) was conducted to investigate the effect of gender and motion on simulation sickness and physiological responses induced by a fully automated urban virtual driving simulation . The results showed that women significantly experienced more simulation sickness while using the driving simulation compared to men. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between the static and moving platform conditions regarding simulation sickness onset. These findings indicate that there is a real separation of how much simulation sickness has an effect on the users depending on their gender. Therefore, female users should be more cautious while using an automated VR driving simulations with a moving platform.

The study was done to check replication of changes in sensitivity with a simple simulator as had been obtained in an experiment using the real road situation. Another purpose was to control simulator sickness which could have confounded data from testing with a simulator or in actual driving. Sensitivity of the drivers (72 healthy young adults, M age = 24 yr., SD = 5) while performing the driving task was measured in terms of subjective ratings of simulator sickness and affect, and physiological measures (i.e., galvanic skin responses and skin temperature) at different driving speeds and in driving mode conditions, using a simple vehicle simulator. Analysis showed measures of drivers' state, including simulator sickness, physiological indices, and subjective reports, increased with driving speed (30 --> 90 -->120 km/hr.) and driving mode change from the regular speed to sudden increasing to sudden decreasing speeds. Particularly, the results suggest that the increased autonomic nervous activation induces increase of rated simulator sickness. Based upon the same tendency in change of the simulator sickness and physiological state with driving speed and driving mode conditions, it was concluded that, if the results obtained from the simulator experiment can be generalized to the real situation, the simulator sickness must be considered a confounding factor. The results also suggest that the changes in human sensitivity are dependent upon aspects related to speed of a vehicle and driving mode.

Background. Air traffic controllers need to use their cognitive resources to cope with multiple tasks while monitoring air traffic. They are trained through advanced 3D simulators; however, they might demonstrate simulator sickness symptoms during this training. The relationship between multitasking and simulator sickness and the influence of different tasks on these variables can be investigated to inform further training practices for an efficient traffic monitoring. Purpose. The purpose of this quasi-experimental research was to explore the influence of different working positions and multitasking scenarios on simulator sickness and performance in 3D Aerodrome Control Training. Method. Thirteen undergraduate students from a civil aviation school participated in a time-series experimental design. Nausea, disorientation and oculomotor disturbances were measured before and after conducting different multitasking scenarios in an aerodrome control simulator. A 20-item simulation performance scale was also used. Performance differences and the relationship between simulator sickness and performance were addressed through parametric tests. Results. Findings revealed that tower-ground positions created higher levels of nausea. Performance scores varied in different scenarios. Simulator sickness was higher in females. Total sickness correlated negatively with performance in all scenarios. Conclusion. Certain tasks have different influences on both simulator sickness and performance. Concurrent multitasking seems to trigger simulator sickness further. The degree of simulator adaptation, test anxiety and physiological measures of the process should be considered in further research.

Use of virtual reality (VR) technology is often accompanied by a series of unwanted symptoms, including nausea and headache, which are characterised as ‘simulator sickness’. Sensory mismatch has been thought to lie at the heart of the problem and recent studies have shown that reducing cue mismatch in VR can have a therapeutic effect. Specifically, electrical stimulation of vestibular afferent nerves (galvanic vestibular stimulation; GVS) can reduce simulator sickness in VR. However, GVS poses a risk to certain populations and can also result in negative symptoms in normal, healthy individuals. Here, we tested whether noisy vestibular stimulation through bone-vibration can also reduce symptoms of simulator sickness. We carried out two experiments in which participants performed a spatial navigation task in VR and completed the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire over a series of trials. Experiment 1 was conducted using a high-end projection-based VR display, whereas Experiment 2 involved the use of a consumer head mounted display. During each trial, vestibular stimulation was either: 1) absent; 2) coupled with large angular accelerations of the projection camera; or 3) applied randomly throughout each trial. In half of the trials, participants actively navigated using a motion controller, and in the other half they were moved passively through the environment along pre-recorded motion trajectories. In both experiments we obtained lower simulator sickness scores when vestibular stimulation was coupled with angular accelerations of the camera. This effect was obtained for both active and passive movement control conditions, which did not differ. The results suggest that noisy vestibular stimulation can reduce simulator sickness, and that this effect appears to generalize across VR conditions. We propose further examination of this stimulation technique.

The purpose of this study was to examine trends in online postings about at-home VR users’ simulator sickness coping strategies. Virtual reality devices have gained in popularity, with an estimated 8% of people having a dedicated VR headset at home. These devices, referred to as head-mounted displays (HMDs), can be used for gaming, education, and social purposes at home. One of the challenges associated with these devices is the incidence of simulator sickness that people experience when wearing them, particularly for extended periods of time. 310 comments from Reddit forums specifically about simulator sickness in gamers were analyzed. A total of eight themes emerged in reporting coping strategies: behavioral methods, cognitive methods, schedule-based exposure, pharmacological/dietary methods, environmental factors, avoiding games that were sickening, and identifying computer system factors that contributed to sickness. This showed some divergence from the larger body of literature on motion sickness coping. Studying simulator sickness in VR users over time is a challenge for laboratory based work, but online communities can help bridge that gap. In the future, these known strategies could be used to inform VR users of coping methods and improve games that are particularly nauseating.

This article discusses factors related to simulation sickness in virtual reality driving simulations with head-mounted displays. Simulation sickness is a well-known phenomenon that has physiological effects on users, such as disorientation, headache, and nausea. There are three major theories why simulation sickness arises. Previous research on this phenomenon has mostly concentrated on driving or flying simulators with standard computer displays. It is, therefore, possible to conclude that any simulated environment could have such an effect, and virtual reality should not be considered an exception to such problems. While virtual reality has had and will continue to have a positive impact on the development and testing of new automotive interior concepts, simulation sickness is a significant drawback. Despite the advances in technology, discomfort from using head-mounted displays has yet to be resolved. A review of these displays in the context of virtual reality driving applications over the recent years will be presented. Moreover, characterization and comparison of approaches to mitigate simulation sickness will be given in the text. Concluding suggestions for future work on the correlation between simulation sickness and a virtual driving environment will be provided.

Attention is the ability to actively process specific information within one’s environment over longer periods of time while disregarding other details. Attention is an important process that contributes to overall cognitive performance from performing every day basic tasks to complex work activities. The use of virtual reality (VR) allows study of the attention processes in realistic environments using ecological tasks. To date, research has focused on the efficacy of VR attention tasks in detecting attention impairment, while the impact of the combination of variables such as mental workload, presence and simulator sickness on both self-reported usability and objective attention task performance in immersive VR has not been examined. The current study tested 87 participants on an attention task in a virtual aquarium using a cross-sectional design. The VR task followed the continuous performance test paradigm where participants had to respond to correct targets and ignore non-targets over 18 min. Performance was measured using three outcomes: omission (failing to respond to correct targets), commission errors (incorrect responses to targets) and reaction time to correct targets. Measures of self-reported usability, mental workload, presence and simulator sickness were collected. The results showed that only presence and simulator sickness had a significant impact on usability. For performance outcomes, simulator sickness was significantly and weakly associated with omission errors, but not with reaction time and commission errors. Mental workload and presence did not significantly predict performance. Our results suggest that usability is more likely to be negatively impacted by simulator sickness and lack of presence than performance and that usability and attention performance are linked. They highlight the importance of considering factors such as presence and simulator sickness in attention tasks as these variables can impact usability.

This paper reports on a study regarding the conditions that reduce simulation sickness in virtual reality driving simulation. Simulation sickness in virtual reality applications is frequent and thus poses a major obstacle in obtaining data from participants involved in these simulations. Many solutions have been presented by various sources on how to reduce the occurrence of simulation sickness symptoms. Nevertheless, there is not enough evidence to back up an appropriate solution that works for the majority of simulated environments and individuals. Therefore, this work was meant to find appropriate solutions of simulation sickness related to virtual reality driving simulators with a focus on the effect of adding visual assets in the simulated environment. Initially, an online survey was performed with 31 participants in order to gather unbiased users’ experiences with driving simulation and virtual reality with regards to simulation sickness. Based on the information gathered from related works and suggestions of the online survey participants, the addition of motion cues and visual assets were identified as very essential when dealing with simulation sickness related to driving simulation. Therefore, new visual assets were added to enhance an already implemented simulator software in order to replicate a realistic traffic environment. An experiment with 72 participants was used to test eight hypotheses related to virtual reality driving simulation and simulations sickness. The results indicate that the addition of visual assets to the virtual reality driving simulator reduced the onset of simulation sickness and improved the driving session’s duration.

We explore motion parameters, more specifically gait parameters, as an objective indicator to assess simulator sickness in Virtual Reality (VR). We discuss the potential relationships between simulator sickness, immersion, and presence. We used two different camera pose (position and orientation) estimation methods for the evaluation of motion tasks in a large-scale VR environment: a simple model and an optimized model that allows for a more accurate and natural mapping of human senses. Participants performed multiple motion tasks (walking, balancing, running) in three conditions: a physical reality baseline condition, a VR condition with the simple model, and a VR condition with the optimized model. We compared these conditions with regard to the resulting sickness and gait, as well as the perceived presence in the VR conditions. The subjective measures confirmed that the optimized pose estimation model reduces simulator sickness and increases the perceived presence. The results further show that both models affect the gait parameters and simulator sickness, which is why we further investigated a classification approach that deals with non-linear correlation dependencies between gait parameters and simulator sickness. We argue that our approach could be used to assess and predict simulator sickness based on human gait parameters and we provide implications for future research.