Human Factor Considerations in Virtual Reality: Adequate or Inadequate?

Abstract

Despite the continued progress in human factor (HF) considerations in virtual reality (VR), health and safety issues persist in VR applications, especially in fully immersive VR. This article reviews those issues and the recent developments to address them and discusses the adequacy of current HF considerations in VR. The four types of realities are first defined: reality, augmented reality, augmented virtual reality, and virtual reality (non-immersive, semi-immersive, and fully immersive). A brief review of the general VR applications (arts, community services, engineering, and others) is presented, followed by a more detailed review of engineering applications (industry, research, and education and training). Notable general HF issues in immersive VR are discussed, including cybersickness, hygiene, immersion injuries, and repetitive strain injuries. Manufacturer support in addressing various health and safety issues, such as in-use symptoms, post-use symptoms, repetitive strain injuries, and system alerts is highlighted. An in-depth review of the research issues related to VR is presented. Based on this study, it is concluded that significant efforts by researchers and manufacturers are still needed to address several HF issues in VR.

Influence of Normal Aging and Multisensory Data Fusion on Cybersickness and Postural Adaptation in Immersive Virtual Reality

“…Sensory mismatches are perceived via the different sensory modalities causing sensory conflicts, as expressed through the sensorimotor outcomes, which can result in balance disorders [12]. Several human, technological, and environmental factors can mitigate the occurrence and intensity of cybersickness [13][14][15][16]. Human factors relate to individual characteristics [17], such as motion sickness susceptibility [11], gender [18,19], age [20], or gaming experience [18].…”

Technology-Based Training: The Future of Using Virtual Reality Training in the Egyptian Hotel Sector

“…These include evaluating the ergonomics of workplace arrangements, creating prototypes of control interfaces, and simulating hazardous environments such as nuclear plant maintenance. (Hernández-Chávez et al, 2021;Easa, 2021). Wei (2012) states that virtual reality has been progressively implemented in the hotel sector.…”

Cognitive load estimation in VR flight simulator

“…Virtual reality based flight simulator is a promising low cost and modular modality to offer a more immersive and adaptable experience for applications wherein lot of design iterations are involved. Augmented, virtual and mixed reality-based cockpits are already being used for cockpit/cabin design evaluations in terms of reachability and visibility, for providing inspection and maintenance training to engineers (Vora et al, 2002) and are considered even for real time deployment (EASA, 2021). Oberhauser et al, (2018) compared VR based flight simulator with a conventional hardware simulator.…”