Effects of Motion Sickness on Encoding and Retrieval Performance and on Psychophysiological Responses

Abstract

Background: Motion sickness has previously been found to deteriorate performance. In complex working environments, sustained ability to perform despite motion sickness is crucial. This study focuses on effects of motion sickness on encoding and retrieval of words. In addition, the temporal development of psychophysiological responses and their relationship with perceived motion sickness were investigated. Methods:Forty healthy participants (20 male and 20 female, age 19-51) performed an encoding and retrieval task during exposure to an optokinetic drum and were compared with 20 controls (8 male and 12 female, age 21-47) not exposed to motion sickness. Measurements of heart rate, heart rate variability, skin conductance, blood volume pulse, respiration rate, and skin temperature were made throughout optokinetic drum exposure.Results: Moderate levels of motion sickness did not affect the ability to encode or retrieve words. Perceived motion sickness was positively related to heart rate, blood volume pulse and skin temperature and negatively related to respiration rate. Conclusions:The psychophysiological measurements did not show consistent patterns of sympathetic activation and parasympathetic withdrawal, as could be expected. Subjective reports of progressing symptoms are still likely to be the most reliable way of assessing motion sickness.

A Visual-Vestibular Model to Predict Motion Sickness for Linear and Angular Motion

“…Previous studies have found a relationship between cognitive load and cybersickness (Bos, 2015; Jones, Le, et al, 2019; Sepich et al, 2022), but there is a lack of passenger vehicles studies on this matter. The proposed hypothesis is also aligned with the multiple resource theory, which states that mental operation performance degrades when the available attention resources are insufficient (Matsangas et al, 2014; Sjörs Dahlman et al, 2014). Inconsistencies across studies warrants further studies to understand the impact of task workload on MS. An alternative hypothesis for the model’s underestimation of MS is that the assumption of zero visual inertial input during task performance doesn’t effectively capture the passenger’s gaze movement.…”

Electrodermal Responses to Driving Maneuvers in a Motion Sickness Inducing Real-World Driving Scenario

“…HR and HRV show almost no correlation to the SMSL in our setting. Many studies indicated that the HR increases, whereas the HRV decreases, with rising MS [3], [50], [54], [55], while other studies report no effects related to MS [49]. Preliminary results of the authors, presented in the supplementary material, indicate increased HRV for susceptible subjects compared to not susceptible ones.…”

Level of motion sickness based on heart rate variability when reading inside a fully automated vehicle

“…One of the explanations could come from the experimental setup of this study compared to other studies that also induced motion sickness in the participants. Most past motion sicknessinducing studies involved the participants keeping their heads still and looking straight inside a rotating drum (or optokinetic drum) [46]. Alternatively, in some other studies, the participants must endure a virtual ride, such as a rollercoaster [45].…”