Field (In)dependence Flexibility Following a Virtual Immersion Is Associated With Cybersickness and Sense of Presence

Abstract

Field dependence–independence (FDI) is a psychological construct determining an individual’s approach of the perception–cognition coupling. In virtual reality (VR) context, several studies suggest that an individual’s perceptive style is susceptible to shift toward a more FI mode through down-weighting of conflicting visual cues. The present study proposes to investigate the potential flexible nature of FDI following a virtual immersion and to assess if this flexibility might be associated with the subjective experience of VR. 86 participants explored a real-world–like virtual environment for approximately 10 min. FDI levels were measured before and after the VR exposure using the rod-and-frame test. Their subjective experience of VR was measured a posteriori (cybersickness and sense of presence) and used in order to build two experimental groups via a cluster analysis. The results showed that only participants with a poor subjective experience of VR (i.e., a low level of sense of presence associated with a high level of cybersickness) significantly shifted to a more FI mode, which is discussed as a sensory re-weighting mechanism. Pragmatical applications are discussed, and future studies are outlined, based on the conclusion that FDI might be more flexible than we thought, which could shed light on the psychophysiology of VR.

Do individual constraints induce flexibility of visual field dependence following a virtual immersion? Effects of perceptive style and cybersickness

“…Our results have shown that flexibility of static FD was explained by a high-level initial FD associated to severe cybersickness in our study, implying that such a process would be the indicator of an ongoing adaptation to reduce an already high level of discomfort for the most dependent individuals, as suggested by Maneuvrier et al (2021). It is possible that field independent participants did not need to change their reliance on static visual cues as they were not vulnerable to the virtual immersion due to their field independence, or they may have been unable to because of a plateau effect in their field independence.…”

“…Regarding the latter, Hecht & Reiner (2007) argued that that high FD may be related to a lower ability to ignore flaws of the visual scene, hence contributing to discomfort. These assertions regarding flexibility of FD relatively to individual VR user experience are also supported by Maneuvrier et al (2021). Indeed, their findings showed that individuals with poorer VR-user experience (low sense of presence associated to a high level of cybersickness) became less visually dependent after exploring a real-world-like virtual environment.…”

“…Therefore, it seems necessary to specify which characteristic (static or dynamic) of visual information individuals are dependent on, when assessing their FD. In previous works, Maneuvrier et al (2021) had suggested user experience as an individual constraint influencing FD flexibility. Our findings however, revealed no influence of sense of presence on FD, possibly explained by the passive nature of our virtual task.…”

“…Multiple studies have suggested that the level of FD can change relative to the context (Bray et al, 2004;Mahboobin et al, 2005;Maneuvrier et al, 2021;Pavlou et al, 2011). According to the theory of vicarious processes (Reuchlin, 1978), the FoR dominance hierarchy could be modified in demanding situations where the preferred FoR does not support a sufficiently effective response, in order to maximize the chances of success (Ohlmann, 1988;Ohlmann & Marendaz, 1991).…”

Predicting VR cybersickness and its impact on visuomotor performance using head rotations and field (in)dependence

“…FDI might be considered as a perceptive style revealing a more or less dominant use of visual cues among multisensory integration (Witkin et al, 1962). This cognitive and/or perceptive style has long been suggested as a defining trait in motion sickness susceptibility, and more recently of cybersickness susceptibility (Deich and Hodges, 1973;Kennedy, 1975;Maneuvrier et al, 2021). FDI is usually measured using the famous Rod and Frame Test where an individual with altered visual cues has to align a rod vertically.…”