Reliability of Psychophysiological Responses Across Multiple Motion Sickness Stimulation Tests

Abstract

Although there is general agreement that a high degree of variability exists between subjects in their autonomic nervous system responses to motion sickness stimulation, very little evidence exists that examines the reproducibility of autonomic responses within subjects during motion sickness stimulation. Our objectives were to examine the reliability of autonomic responses and symptom levels across five testing occasions using the (1) final minute of testing, (2) change in autonomic response and the change in symptom level, and (3) strength of the relationship between the change in symptom level and the change in autonomic responses across the entire motion sickness test. The results indicate that, based on the final minute of testing, the autonomic responses of heart rate, blood volume pulse, and respiration rate are moderately stable across multiple tests. Changes in heart rate, blood volume pulse, respiration rate, and symptoms throughout the test duration are less stable across the tests. Finally, autonomic responses and symptom levels are significantly related across the entire motion sickness lest.

Correlation Between Heart Rate and the Severity of Motion Sickness Caused by Optokinetic Stimulation

“…The results also show an increase of heart rate with increasing severity of nausea, especially at ratings 5 (“moderate nausea, can continue”) and 6 (“moderate nausea, want to stop”). In general, these results are consistent with those found by %3owings et al (1986) and %3tout et al (1995). In addition, they show that smaller changes in heart rate (i.e., between “no symptoms” and “mild symptoms”) can be detected.…”

“…In a similar study, Cowings et al (1990) found that heart rate rose significantly with increasing severity of nausea: a 72bpm average resting heart rate during pre-exposure increased to 77bpm during mild nausea and to 87 bpm, during severe nausea. Similar findings were reported by %3tout et al (1995) in subjects repeatedly exposed to Coriolis stimulation. Both %3owings et al (1990) and %3tout et al (1995) reported positive correlations between subjective ratings of nausea and heart rate.…”

“…Similar findings were reported by %3tout et al (1995) in subjects repeatedly exposed to Coriolis stimulation. Both %3owings et al (1990) and %3tout et al (1995) reported positive correlations between subjective ratings of nausea and heart rate.…”

Level of motion sickness based on heart rate variability when reading inside a fully automated vehicle

“…All the BPM measurements were increased rather sharply in Stage 3 before gradually stabilizing in Stage 4 and 5 and decreasing in the final stage (Stage 6) (see Figure 4). A past study from literature reviews has shown that BPM is positively correlated with motion sickness severity [16], [41], [42]. In this study, the average recorded BPM in Stage 3 was 74.9 for the control-condition, 76.8 for the visual-condition and 77.6 for haptic-condition.…”

“…In addition to RMSSD, the heartbeat in terms of beats per minute (BPM) was also measured. Past studies found that increased motion sickness was positively correlated with increased BPM [16], [41], [42]. In terms of frequency-domain analysis, the high-frequency (HF) component (between 0.15 to 0.40 Hz) was extracted by using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).…”