Individual Differences &amp; Task Attention in Cybersickness: A Call for a Standardized Approach to Data Sharing

Gilbert, Stephen B.; Jasper, Angelica; Sepich, Nathan C.; Doty, Taylor A.; Kelly, Jonathan W.; Dorneich, Michael C.

doi:10.1109/vrw52623.2021.00037

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Varmaghani et al (2021) speculated about the reduction of spatial ability and attention and those factors' impact on cybersickness, but found no significant correlations between cognitive performance and cybersickness. Based on these mixed results, the authors recommend that task workload be measured by default in future cybersickness studies, as recommended Gilbert et al (2021).…”

Section: Tasks Workload and Cybersicknessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of task workload on cybersickness

Sepich

Jasper

Fieffer

et al. 2022

Front. Virtual Real.

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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.

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Section: Tasks Workload and Cybersicknessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of task workload on cybersickness

Sepich

Jasper

Fieffer

et al. 2022

Front. Virtual Real.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, These assumptions depend on the duration of the trials and are also associated with an individual's previous VR or VR game experience and other individual differences (such as rate of sensory re-weighting, rate of adaptation during VR exposure, speed of recovery after VR exposure). These individual differences are difficult to measure and require a solid standardized protocol for measurements (Gilbert et al 2021). In conclusion, the review results on contributing factors indicate that it is difficult to predict individual susceptibility given the factors discussed above.…”

Section: Other Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 96%

A review of cybersickness in head-mounted displays: raising attention to individual susceptibility

2022

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Cybersickness still poses a significant challenge to the widespread usage of virtual reality, leading to different levels of discomfort and potentially breaking the immersive experience. Researchers have attempted to discover the possible fundamental causes of cybersickness for years. Despite the longstanding interest in the research field, inconsistent results have been drawn on the contributing factors and solutions to combating cybersickness. Moreover, little attention has been paid to individual susceptibility. A consolidated explanation remains under development, requiring more empirical studies with robust and reproducible methodologies. This review presents an integrated survey connecting the findings from previous review papers and the state of the art involving empirical studies and participants. A literature review is then presented, focusing on the practical studies of different contributing factors, the pros and cons of measurements, profiles of cybersickness, and solutions to reduce this phenomenon. Our findings suggest a lack of considerations regarding user susceptibility and gender balance in between groups studies. In addition, incongruities among empirical findings raised concerns. We conclude by suggesting points of insights for future empirical investigations.

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“…As mentioned above, the causes of cybersickness can be categorized into four main categories of factors that affect cybersickness: hardware, individual differences, task, and software (Gilbert et al, 2021). Pendulum Chair is an environment that can support most studies of these factors.…”

Section: Pendulum Chair Research Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A variety of studies have tried to overcome the issue of cybersickness by exploring the mechanisms of cybersickness (e.g., Reason & Brand, 1975; Riccio & Stoffregen, 1991; Treisman, 1977). Also, it is known that multiple factors influence cybersickness for a person (Gilbert et al, 2021) including the software (e.g., Kim et al, 2020; Kirollos et al, 2022), the hardware (e.g., Caserman et al, 2021; Pouke et al, 2018), the person’s individual characteristics (e.g., Jasper et al, 2021; Lackner, 2014), and the task itself (Sepich et al, 2022). Each of the aforementioned factors can be explored more deeply, but it would be helpful for the research community to have a common research platform that can be customized to conduct research on each factor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pendulum Chair: A Research Platform for Cybersickness

Sanaei,

Perron,

Gilbert

2023

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual

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Despite advances in VR hardware, cybersickness remains a key barrier to VR. Having a common customizable research platform could help the research community. This paper introduces a cybersickness research platform called Pendulum Chair for “spinning world” (egocentric rotation) experiences. The design of Pendulum Chair is justified and four different conditions are described from a Pendulum Chair study as validation. The conditions were defined as two different background scenes and two conditions of music. Data from 56 participants were collected and results showed that in all four conditions, participants reported cybersickness. The use of the open-source Pendulum Chair Unity project could enable stronger comparisons across cybersickness studies.

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Individual Differences & Task Attention in Cybersickness: A Call for a Standardized Approach to Data Sharing

Cited by 9 publications

References 25 publications

The impact of task workload on cybersickness

The impact of task workload on cybersickness

A review of cybersickness in head-mounted displays: raising attention to individual susceptibility

Pendulum Chair: A Research Platform for Cybersickness

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