Simulator Sickness during Head Mounted Display (HMD) of Real World Video Captured Scenes

Abstract

The effect of viewing a display of the "real-world" via an HMD on simulator sickness was investigated. We hypothesized that simulator sickness would increase as time performing a task wearing an HMD increased. Also, we predicted that viewing a "real-world" display via an HMD compared to a control of not using an HMD would result in greater sickness. Participants made 200 head movements to look at eight different objects during two within-subjects conditions: (1) wearing an HMD and viewing a video display of the room; and (2) not wearing an HMD. Sickness scores were greater when viewing the room through the HMD and increased as time on task increased in both conditions. These findings suggested that characteristics of the HMD as well as task performance may have contributed to simulator sickness.

The Use of Virtual Reality in Psychology: A Case Study in Visual Perception

“…Although common in most VR users, these side effects vary from person to person and, as such, it is difficult to pin down what aspects of immersion are responsible. While some studies suggest that more immersive HMDs are linked to higher levels of sickness in participants [ 53 ], others suggest that there is little difference between the side effects of using standard desktop computer display and a head-mounted VR display [ 54 ]. Regardless, it seems that these symptoms are generally mild and quick to subside and there is some evidence that users can adapt with repeated exposure [ 1 , 55 – 57 ].…”

Virtual reality in a cave: limitations and the need for HMDs?

“…The most obvious one to tackle for the sake of user acceptance is that of simulator sickness. There has been research comparing simulator sickness in HMDs versus CAVEs, and some research suggests HMDs have their own unique simulator sickness profile (e.g., Cobb et al, 1999;Moss et al, 2008). If true, this would suggest that each type of VR interface has its own unique sickness considerations, and its own unique way of combating those problems so that they are minimized or eliminated for the users.…”

The Effect of Apparent Latency on Simulator Sickness While Using a See-Through Helmet-Mounted Display

“…DiZio & Lackner (1997) observed that as latency increased, sickness increased monotonically up to 200 ms. Cobb et al (1999) observed that higher levels of disorientation were experienced when using a slower processor (greater latency). A study by Moss et al (2008) observed that peak sickness was significantly higher when using an HMD and concluded that latency may have been the characteristic that elicited simulator sickness; however, no effort was made to isolate latency as the independent variable, and thus other characteristics may have contributed.…”

“…Several studies have suggested the following as contributing to simulator sickness: age (Reason & Brand, 1975), gender (Hein, 1993), prior history of simulator sickness (Braithwaite & Braithwaite, 1990), head movement (Moss, Scisco, & Muth, 2008), body movement (Bouyer & Watt, 1996), image scale (Draper et al, 2001), and latency (DiZio & Lackner, 1997), which is the focus of this article. From a physiological perspective, latency with HMDs is the time from user input (head motion) to corresponding feedback (visual perception) of the updated HMD imagery and results in apparent latency that is visually perceived by the user.…”

“…Such studies may not maintain head movement frequency and direction (Draper et al, 2001), involve the use of a metronome (Adelstein et al, 2003;Allison et al, 2001;Ellis et al, 1999b), or include audible cues (Moss et al, 2008;Moss & Muth, 2011). We used a visual method for the participants to accurately maintain head movement frequency and direction, and thus the apparent latency seen by participants in each particular testing condition is the same.…”