A narrative review of immersive virtual reality’s ergonomics and risks at the workplace: cybersickness, visual fatigue, muscular fatigue, acute stress, and mental overload

Abstract

This narrative review synthesizes and introduces 386 previous works about virtual reality-induced symptoms and effects by focusing on cybersickness, visual fatigue, muscle fatigue, acute stress, and mental overload. Usually, these VRISE are treated independently in the literature, although virtual reality is increasingly considered an option to replace PCs at the workplace, which encourages us to consider them all at once. We emphasize the context of office-like tasks in VR, gathering 57 articles meeting our inclusion/exclusion criteria. Cybersickness symptoms, influenced by fifty factors, could prevent workers from using VR. It is studied but requires more research to reach a theoretical consensus. VR can lead to more visual fatigue than other screen uses, influenced by fifteen factors, mainly due to vergence-accommodation conflicts. This side effect requires more testing and clarification on how it differs from cybersickness. VR can provoke muscle fatigue and musculoskeletal discomfort, influenced by fifteen factors, depending on tasks and interactions. VR could lead to acute stress due to technostress, task difficulty, time pressure, and public speaking. VR also potentially leads to mental overload, mainly due to task load, time pressure, and intrinsically due interaction and interface of the virtual environment. We propose a research agenda to tackle VR ergonomics and risks issues at the workplace.

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

“…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 . Techniques to reduce visual fatigue may include presenting monoscopic videos as opposed to stereoscopic videos (different viewing angles presented to each eye for depth perception); limiting durations of HMD use to 20 min.…”

“…Techniques to reduce visual fatigue may include presenting monoscopic videos as opposed to stereoscopic videos (different viewing angles presented to each eye for depth perception); limiting durations of HMD use to 20 min. ; and avoiding VR after extended use of other devices that emit blue light (i.e., phones, computers) 61 . With the increasing quality of HMDs and 360-degree camera technology, cybersickness may play a decreasing role in virtual nature counterindications.…”

Impact of anxiety and confidence in virtual reality‐mediated learning transferred to hands‐on tasks

“…After adjusting the HMD and VR controller, TA did not provide any assistance except for equipment problems during the learning process. To prevent additional burden on learners with the VR equipment, Souchet et al (2023) recommended the learning time in the VR environment should be controlled for a short period.…”

Toward Optimized VR/AR Ergonomics: Modeling and Predicting User Neck Muscle Contraction

“…Despite extensive efforts on designing more lightweight HMDs, their current form factors still considerably alter users' behaviors. Consequently, muscular discomfort [Chihara and Seo 2018;Forde et al 2011;Penumudi et al 2020;Souchet et al 2022], especially in the neck and shoulders [Kim and Shin 2018;Marklin Jr et al 2022], may be induced. Prior research has studied the impacts of headsupported mass on neck muscle activities under various application scenarios to better design dedicated hardware devices [Le et al 2021;Rubine-Gatina et al 2022;Thuresson et al 2005Thuresson et al , 2003, such as military helmets.…”

“…However, their current head-mounted form factors incur non-trivial "in vitro" weight and shift the head's natural center of mass [Chen et al 2021]. The resulting changes in neck muscle state and workload have been evidenced to cause discomfort and injuries [Chihara and Seo 2018;Forde et al 2011;Marklin Jr et al 2022;Penumudi et al 2020;Souchet et al 2022]. Despite emerging evidence and concerns over such ergonomic side effects, comprehensively assessing and optimizing VR users' muscular comfort is still in its infancy.…”