Evaluating the effect of multi-sensory stimulations on simulator sickness and sense of presence during HMD-mediated VR experience

Abstract

Some lines of evidence have shown that sensory input, especially related to vestibular and somatosensory stimulation, may reduce the symptoms related to simulator sickness and increase the sense of presence in VR. The present study aims at understanding how mechanical vibration and auditory stimulation can be used to improve user experience in the context of VR mediated by head-mounted displays. Four different groups comprising a total of 80 participants were tested under different conditions of sensory input (visual and vibration, visual-auditory, combined visual-auditory and vibratory, and visual only), during a VR roller-coaster experience. No significant differences in simulator sickness were found between the groups exposed to seat vibration and/or audio. However, sense of presence showed to be increased when vibratory stimuli were included. Post-hoc analyses showed that female users but not male ones, experienced an increase of sense of presence when vibratory stimulation was used.

Improved Walking Through an Aperture in a Virtual Environment Transfers to a Real Environment: Introduction of Enriched Feedback and Gradual Increase in Task Difficulty

“…The present findings were consistent with relevant studies demonstrating the effects of VR training. Previous studies have shown that adding vibratory stimulation might improve the realism of the VR environment (Grassini et al, 2021) and to enhance the motor-learning effect (Grassini et al, 2020). Positive feedback for successful trials effectively reinforces participants' behavior (Abe et al, 2011;Nikooyan and Ahmed, 2015;Vassiliadis et al, 2021).…”

“…In Kondo et al, the verbal information ("Left hit" or "Right hit") was shown on the screen. Based on recent reports showing that motor learning using VR was not effective under a non-realistic VR environment (Grassini et al, 2020(Grassini et al, , 2021, we introduced a new vibratory stimulation to enhance the reality of the collision.…”

Using electrophysiological measures to evaluate the sense of presence in immersive virtual environments: An event‐related potential study

“…The ride is part of the selection of rides available in a customer-oriented videogame ("Epic Roller Coaster" B4T games). Such type of VR was chosen for the ability to induce, even after short use, a high sense of presence as previously shown (see e.g., Grassini et al, 2021a;Grassini et al, 2021b). The virtual ride was set in a fictitious tropic island environment.…”

User Individual Characteristics and Perceived Usability in Immersive HMD VR: A Mixed Method Explorative Study

“…The ride is part of the selection of rides available in a customer-oriented videogame ("Epic Roller Coaster" B4T games). Such type of VR was chosen for the ability to induce, even after short use, a high sense of presence as previously shown (see e.g., Grassini et al, 2021a;Grassini et al, 2021b). The virtual ride was set in a fictitious tropic island environment.…”