Are Modern Head-Mounted Displays Sexist? A Systematic Review on Gender Differences in HMD-Mediated Virtual Reality

Abstract

Modern head-mounted displays (HMDs) are a promising technology. Thanks to their affordable cost and versatility, HMDs are gaining attention from different sectors. However, the experience reported by the users of these technologies is sometimes negative. A number of people, when using an HMD, complain of various types of physical discomfort as well as symptoms like headache, disorientation, and nausea. These symptoms, developed during or after exposure to virtual environments, are commonly referred to with the term simulator sickness. Some scientific studies have shown that women are commonly more sensitive to simulator sickness. However, a gender imbalance in the susceptibility to simulator sickness has not been widely studied in the context of modern HMDs, and the studies that have been done have reported heterogeneous findings. The present systematic review aims to gather the pieces of evidence that support and oppose a gender difference in the susceptibility of simulator sickness in the framework of modern HMDs. We also aim to individuate other gender differences in the experience of the use of these technologies to establish whether there is sufficient evidence to support a gender discrepancy in the user experience.

The Use of Virtual Reality Alone Does Not Promote Training Performance (but Sense of Presence Does)

“…Recently, some investigations have argued that HMDs may have negative effects specifically for female users (e.g., Munafo et al, 2017). However, these data have often only focused on negative symptoms from simulator sickness (SS) and were not derived from investigating other factors, such as performance and possible learning differences between males and females in VR (see Grassini and Laumann, 2020c, for a recent review). Few articles have reported gender differences in performance connected to the use of VR, and results have often shown no differences (Cárdenas-Delgado et al, 2017;Juan et al, 2018;Khashe et al, 2018;Roettl and Terlutter, 2018).…”

Association of Individual Factors with Simulator Sickness and Sense of Presence in Virtual Reality mediated by head-mounted displays (HMDs)

“…Given that data on SS intensity is based on self-reports, it has been also suggested that males may be more likely to underreport the degree of subjective discomfort (e.g., [19,26]. However, some investigations have failed to replicate earlier published findings, and did not report any difference related to users' sex (see [27] for a review).…”

An experimental methodology to capture user and gameplay data tied to cybersickness

“…On the other hand, according to the authors, females participants discontinued early because of discomfort. In other words, the VR exposure time for female participants was significantly less than for According to recent studies [4,5,8], female individuals experienced better performance or magnified cognitive skills, localization, and picture tasks in VR than males. These results corroborate and suggest that gender differences in cybersickness may change besides different tasks in virtual reality environments.…”