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Increasingly popular in video games, virtual reality is even demonstrating its usefulness in the field of health. But for some, reliance on this technology can lead to serious cybersickness. How to explain this phenomenon ? Researchers provide an answer.
As virtual reality revolutionizes games, education and social interaction, it appears important to tackle the problem of cybersickness marked by symptoms such as nausea, disorientation, eye strain.
Cybersickness and perception of subjective verticality
Cybersickness is a form of motion sickness that occurs as a result of exposure to immersive virtual and augmented reality applications. But why are some victims of it while others will never know it? To find out, researchers from the University of Waterloo enrolled 31 participants and assessed their perceptions of verticality before and after playing two virtual reality games, one high-intensity and one low-intensity. Subjective visual verticality is a measure of how individuals perceive the orientation of vertical lines.
- Those who were less sick were more likely to have the greatest change in their perception of vertical lines after exposure to VR, especially at high intensity;
- Conversely, those with the highest levels of cybersickness were less likely to have changed their perception of vertical lines;
- There were no significant differences between men and women, or between participants with low and high gambling experience.
“By understanding the relationship between sensory rehabilitation and the risk of cybersickness, we can potentially develop personalized strategies to limit these problems, which take into account individual differences in sensory processing and thus reduce the occurrence of cybersickness.said co-author William Chung of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.
Towards applications to limit cybersickness
“Our results suggest that the severity of a person’s cybersickness is affected by how well our senses adapt to the conflict between reality and virtual reality.“said Michael Barnett-Cowan, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences.”This knowledge could be important for VR app developers and designers, allowing them to create more enjoyable environments for users.”.
“Although the subjective vertical visual task significantly predicts the severity of cybersickness symptoms, much remains to be explained.“, however tempers William Chung.