Identifying Causes of and Solutions for Cybersickness in Immersive Technology: Reformulation of a Research and Development Agenda

Abstract

Immersive technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, initially failed to live up to expectations, but have improved greatly, with many new head-worn displays and associated applications being released over the past few years. Unfortunately, 'cybersickness' remains as a common user problem that must be overcome if mass adoption is to be realized. This article evaluates the state of research on this problem, identifies challenges that must be addressed, and formulates an updated cybersickness research and development (R&D) agenda. The new agenda recommends prioritizing creation of powerful, lightweight, and untethered head-worn displays, reduction of visual latencies, standardization of symptom and aftereffect measurement, development of improved countermeasures, and improved understanding of the magnitude of the problem and its implications for job performance. Some of these priorities are unresolved problems from the original agenda which should get increased attention now that immersive technologies are proliferating widely. If the resulting R&D agenda is carefully executed, it should render cybersickness a challenge of the past and accelerate mass adoption of immersive technologies to enhance training, performance, and recreation.

The Psychometrics of Cybersickness in Augmented Reality

“…The AR Tablet 6-20 min condition also has potential to reach medium cybersickness levels (Total SSQ score >20.1-27.9) but not more extreme levels. The lesser cybersickness with 6-20 vs. 3-40 min exposures suggests that participants may have experienced a mild form of inoculation to cybersickness with more (6 vs. 3) repeat exposures due to a sensory reweighting process in which they "learned" to ignore conflicts associated with AR HWDs, such as the vergence-accommodation conflict (Stanney et al, 2020b). It is interesting that the adverse AEs persisted for >60 min postexposure with the 3-40 min condition, which suggests that the longer exposure duration may have inhibited the inoculation process.…”

“…It is characterized as a physiological response to an unusual sensory stimulus, similar to motion sickness (Bouchard et al, 2007). The reported incidence and degree of intensity vary based on exposure duration and nature of virtual content and display technology; more than half of participants are expected to experience at least some degree of discomfort upon initial exposure (Lawson, 2014;Garcia-Agundez et al, 2019), although most users adapt to the environment after a few uses (Stanney et al, 2020b).…”

Hazard Perception, Presence, and Simulation Sickness—A Comparison of Desktop and Head-Mounted Display for Driving Simulation

“…Simulations often comprise virtual reality (VR) features, such as stereoscopic view provided by head mounted displays (HMDs), and in-and output devices that allow for a natural interaction with the simulation (e.g., force feedback steering wheels and seats in driving simulation). In recent years, VR simulations have become affordable even for private use and therefore, enjoy great popularity (e.g., Stanney et al, 2020). However, the expected advantages of VR-based simulations are not restricted to increasing joy or motivation; VR applications are particularly interesting for assessment purposes.…”

“…When people observe or interact with (virtual) moving stimuli, there is a certain risk for them to experience visually induced motion sickness (depending on the context: simulation sickness, cybersickness, VR sickness; e.g., Chang et al, 2020). Therefore, in addition to the sensation of virtual presence, simulator sickness is an important factor in simulated driving studies, as it can limit the use of advanced immersive technologies in general, such as virtual and augmented reality (Stanney et al, 2020). Simulator sickness manifests itself, for example, as nausea, headaches, eye discomfort, and drowsiness, which can develop during simulation and, if severe, can lead to quitting prematurely (e. g., Kennedy et al, 1993;Lawson, 2014;Chang et al, 2020).…”

“…These factors relate to content aspects of the simulation (for example, the tasks to be performed during simulation) and to human factors (Chang et al, 2020;Curry et al, 2020). The frequency and severity of simulator sickness may also be, related to the type and quality of the device used for simulation (Stanney et al, 2020). Accordingly, Nichols et al (2000) demonstrated increased simulator sickness when using an HMD instead of a desktop monitor.…”