Floor-vibration VR: Mitigating Cybersickness Using Whole-body Tactile Stimuli in Highly Realistic Vehicle Driving Experiences

Sungchul Jung,Richard Li,Ryan Mckee,Robert W Lindeman,Mary C Whitton

doi:10.1109/tvcg.2021.3067773

Abstract

This work addresses cybersickness, a major barrier to successful long-exposure immersive virtual reality (VR) experiences since user discomfort frequently leads to prematurely ending such experiences. Starting from sensory conflict theory, we posit that if a vibrating floor delivers vestibular stimuli that minimally match the vibration characteristics of a scenario, the size of the conflict between the visual and vestibular senses will be reduced and, thus, the incidence and/or severity of cybersickness will also be reduced. We integrated a custom-built, computer-controlled vibrating floor in our VR system. To evaluate the system, we implemented a realistic off-road vehicle driving simulator in which participants rode multiple laps as passengers on an off-road course. We programmed the floor to generate vertical vibrations similar to those experienced in real off-road vehicle travel. The scenario and driving conditions were designed to be cybersickness-inducing for users in both the Vibration and No-vibration conditions. We collected subjective and objective data for variables previously shown to be related to levels of cybersickness or presence. These included presence and simulator sickness questionnaires (SSQ), self-rated discomfort levels, and the physiological signals of heart rate, galvanic skin response (GSR), and pupil size. Comparing data between participants in the Vibration group (N=11) to the No-Vibration group (N=11), we found that Delta-SSQ Oculomotor response and the GSR physiological signal, both known to be positively correlated with cybersickness, were significantly lower (with large effect sizes) for the Vibration group. Other variables differed between groups in the same direction, but with trivial or small effect sizes. The results indicate that the floor vibration significantly reduced some measures of cybersickness.

Highlights

Sensory conflict is a well-recognized theory of the cause of cybersickness
Our premise is that if we can design a system that will provide some vestibular stimuli through a vibrating floor, and if that vibration is at least somewhat matched to the vibrations occurring visually in the virtual scenario, we will be able to reduce the severity of the conflict between the visual and vestibular senses and, reduce the incidence and severity of cybersickness experienced in that scenario
This section begins with a discussion of the pre-processing we did on our collected data to generate the variables we used in our statistical tests

Summary

Introduction

In immersive Virtual Reality (VR) systems where users do not physically move about and naturally generate stimulation in their vestibular systems, there is conflict between the visual stimuli provided and the (missing) vestibular stimuli. Our premise is that if we can design a system that will provide some vestibular stimuli through a vibrating floor, and if that vibration is at least somewhat matched to the vibrations occurring visually in the virtual scenario, we will be able to reduce the severity of the conflict between the visual and vestibular senses and, reduce the incidence and severity of cybersickness experienced in that scenario. Higher visual realism and complexity can increase the severity of cybersickness symptoms, which, in turn, degrades the user’s VR experience [40, 47]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion