Virtual reality (VR) usage continues to grow, but visually induced motion sickness (VIMS) can decrease VR effectiveness for some users. This study seeks to compare methods of VIMS mitigation and explore sickness among gender and video game experience groups. Participant discomfort and early dropout are problems for studies that involve virtual environment (VE) exposure, but previous research has demonstrated that natural decay and physical, real-world hand-eye coordination tasks can serve as effective mitigation strategies. In this study, 57 participants wore a head-mounted display (HMD) and navigated a maze VE designed to induce cybersickness. Participants then experienced one of four mitigation techniques: real natural decay (HMD off), virtual natural decay (HMD on with idyllic VE and no locomotion), real hand-eye coordination task (HMD off), and virtual hand-eye coordination task (HMD on). Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) measures were taken periodically throughout maze and mitigation tasks. Results demonstrated that peak sickness during the maze VE occurred after approximately 10 min. Analyses of mitigation techniques showed that real natural decay resulted in significantly more sickness recovery when compared with the virtual hand-eye coordination task for SSQ total score, nausea, and oculomotor constructs, but not disorientation. The real natural decay technique was the most effective at bringing participants' final sickness measure back to their initial baseline measure; however, other mitigation techniques yielded effectiveness, but at a lower rate. This study extends previous research about hand-eye mitigation approaches by demonstrating that natural decay and hand-eye tasks in a virtual and real-world setting were effective in reducing VIMS. Real-world natural decay was the most effective at mitigating VIMS, and the virtual hand-eye task was not as effective as the other three tasks. Women experienced more VIMS than men did but also recovered than men did during mitigation. Video gamers experienced less VIMS than non-gamers. These findings bolster extant knowledge about VIMS mitigation techniques and can inform future development of virtual mitigation techniques.

This study explored the impact of task workload on virtual reality (VR) cybersickness. Cybersickness is a negative side effect of using VR to which many users are susceptible. Previous research on the impact on task workload on cybersickness has yielded no consistent relationships, but given that task workload requires attentional resources, it is worth further investigation of how a demand on attention might increase or decrease cybersickness. In this study, mental workload of participants (N = 151) was modified in three different task groups within the same virtual environment (VE). The Cybersickness Corn Maze VR testbed contained cybersickness-inducing stimuli and tasks with varying workload. The 0-Back group used a controller to select an object as a visual attention task. The 2-Back group performed the 2-Back memory detection task, using a controller to collect objects that matched the object presented two objects ago. The No-Task group passively moved through the environment and was not given a controller. Workload, cybersickness, dropout rate, presence, and task accuracy were compared across groups. Workload was found to be statistically significantly different in each group: highest in the 2-Back group, medium in the 0-Back group, and lowest in the No-Task group, validating the task design. Cybersickness in the 2-Back group was significantly higher than in the No-Task (140% higher) and 0-Back (54% higher) groups measured by the change in simulator sickness questionnaire (SSQ) total severity (Post SSQ - Pre SSQ). The rate of participants’ dropout due to cybersickness was significantly higher in 2-back (33%) as compared with 0-Back (10%), but 0-Back and No-Task dropout rates were not significantly different. These results indicate that 1) task workload affects cybersickness and 2) its effect could be based on a threshold of workload. Presence increased with the addition of a task but plateaued between the 0-Back and 2-Back groups, suggesting that presence can be affected by task workload but only to a certain extent. Task accuracy was shown to negatively correlate with cybersickness within the task groups. A relationship between workload and cybersickness was found and warrants further research into these concepts. This work highlights the need for task workload and attention to be studied as components of the mechanisms underlying cybersickness.

Widespread adoption of virtual reality (VR) will likely be limited by the common occurrence of cybersickness. Cybersickness susceptibility varies across individuals, and previous research reported that interpupillary distance (IPD) may be a factor. However, that work emphasized cybersickness recovery rather than cybersickness immediately after exposure. The current study (N=178) examined if the mismatch between the user's IPD and the VR headset's IPD setting contributes to immediate cybersickness. Multiple linear regression indicated that gender and prior sickness due to screens were significant predictors of immediate cybersickness. However, no significant relationship between IPD mismatch and immediate cybersickness was observed.

Virtual reality users are susceptible to disorientation, particularly when using locomotion interfaces that lack self-motion cues. Environmental cues, such as boundaries defined by walls or a fence, provide information to help the user remain oriented. This experiment evaluated whether the type of boundary impacts its usefulness for staying oriented. Participants wore a head-mounted display and performed a triangle completion task in virtual reality by traveling two outbound path segments before attempting to point to the path origin. The task was completed with two teleporting interfaces differing in the availability of rotational self-motion cues, and within five virtual environments differing in the availability and type of boundaries. Pointing errors were highest in an open field without environmental cues, and lowest in a classroom with walls and landmarks. Environments with a single square boundary defined by a fence, drop-off, or floor texture discontinuity led to errors in between the open field and the classroom. Performance with the floor texture discontinuity was similar to that with navigational barriers (i.e., fence and drop-off), indicating that an effective barrier need not be a navigational impediment. These results inform spatial cognitive theory about boundary-based navigation and inform application by specifying the types of environmental and self-motion cues that designers of virtual environments should include to reduce disorientation in virtual reality.

The WEAR Scale was used to collect data on the social acceptability of three wearable devices from 1,387 participants from the US Midwest and Silicon Valley. The most notable result was that a head-worn “medical device” was rated as more socially acceptable ( d=0.78) than the same device described as a “brain fitness tool,” which was the opposite of what was hypothesized. Also, as hypothesized, Silicon Valley participants found the wearables more socially acceptable than Midwestern U.S. participants. The Scale and these results enable industry to better predict the human factors affecting social acceptability of wearables throughout development and before market release.