Visually Induced Motion Sickness on the Horizon

Abstract

Visually induced motion sickness is an unpleasant but common side-effect of many simulations and VR-applications. We investigated whether an earth-fixed reference frame provided in the simulation is able to reduce motion sickness. To do so, we created a moving starfield that did not contain any indicators of the spatial orientation of the observer. As the observer was simulated to move through the randomly oscillating starfield, a time-to-contact task had to be carried out. Two colored stars on collision course with each other had to be spotted, then they disappeared and the time of their collision had to be judged. Eye-movements, task performance, and motion sickness were recorded. This condition without visual reference to the observer's upright was supplemented with three conditions containing either an earth-fixed fixation cross, an earth-fixed horizon line, or a line that was yoked to the head. Results show that only the earth-fixed horizon was able to significantly reduce visually induced motion sickness. Thus, a mere earth-stationary anchor does not suffice, a clear indication of earth horizontal seems necessary to reap a modest benefit.

Daily exposure to virtual nature reduces symptoms of anxiety in college students

“…Techniques to minimize cybersickness in the creation of virtual nature interventions also exist. When using a 360-degree camera, videos can be captured exclusively on a stationary tripod, as we have done here, or, when movement is desired, videos can be stabilized using an electronic handheld gimbal for moving video 58 with the horizon clearly visible 59 . Aside from cybersickness, HMDs can induce visual fatigue, also called eyestrain and describing the physiological strain or stress resulting from excessive demands on the visual system 60 , 61 .…”

Emotions are associated with the genesis of visually induced motion sickness in virtual reality

“…Second, after viewing the single IAPS images, we immersed subjects in a simulation of a white starfield moving around them. The starfield simulation was adapted from previous work on VIMS by Hemmerich et al ( 2020 ) and included rotations. The parameters for the starfield simulation can be found in the supplementary materials.…”

Comparing cybersickness in virtual reality and mixed reality head-mounted displays

“…Rest frame hypothesis (RFH) predicts that in the absence of a visually stable cue such as the horizon (i.e., the point at which the sky and the Earth's surface appear to meet), MS becomes proportionally severe (Parker and Prothero, 2003). RFH is arguably related to the neural mismatch theory as it infers that a lack of cues for spatial orientation aggravates the visual-vestibular conflict (Hemmerich et al, 2020). However, when clear and reliable reference cues such as the horizon are present, MS can be far less severe as these provide relative spatial orientation cues to an observer.…”

“…A caveat of Moro et al (2017) is that the authors did not use a recognized measure of CS. Work by Kemeny et al (2017); Cao et al (2018); Hemmerich et al (2020); Whittinghill et al (2015) all found that the presence of RFs reduced symptoms of CS. Thus, CS is thought to be less severe in MR compared to VR because MR devices permit the user to perceive a physical reference cue (Lawson, 2005;Kuiper et al, 2019;Risi and Palmisano, 2019).…”