Temporal Dynamics of Visually Induced Motion Perception and Neural Evidence of Alterations in the Motion Perception Process in an Immersive Virtual Reality Environment

Abstract

Even though reciprocal inhibitory vestibular interactions following visual stimulation have been understood as sensory-reweighting mechanisms to stabilize motion perception; this hypothesis has not been thoroughly investigated with temporal dynamic measurements. Recently, virtual reality technology has been implemented in different medical domains. However, exposure in virtual reality environments can cause discomfort, including nausea or headache, due to visual-vestibular conflicts. We speculated that self-motion perception could be altered by accelerative visual motion stimulation in the virtual reality situation because of the absence of vestibular signals (visual-vestibular sensory conflict), which could result in the sickness. The current study investigated spatio-temporal profiles for motion perception using immersive virtual reality. We demonstrated alterations in neural dynamics under the sensory mismatch condition (accelerative visual motion stimulation) and in participants with high levels of sickness after driving simulation. Additionally, an event-related potentials study revealed that the high-sickness group presented with higher P3 amplitudes in sensory mismatch conditions, suggesting that it would be a substantial demand of cognitive resources for motion perception on sensory mismatch conditions.

Brain activity during cybersickness: a scoping review

“…Theta and alpha bands showed inconsistent results. In particular, while several studies showed enhanced alpha power in the higher cybersickness condition (Ahn et al 2020;Oh and Whangbo 2018), other experiments indicated the opposite result (Celikcan 2019;Chang et al 2013;Choi et al 2009). While beta frequency band tended to show a negative correlation between their power and the level of discomfort (Chang et al 2013;Choi et al 2009;Heo and Yoon 2020;Kim et al 2005), gamma band indicated a positive correlation (Lin et al 2018;Oh and Whangbo 2018).…”

“…These locations are well-known places for the reference electrode because they are electrically stabilized but linked to the cortical area. In some cases, a particular spherical region, such as the frontal or parietal area, was chosen for the re-referencing (Ahn et al 2020;Khoirunnisaa et al 2018;Wu et al 2020).…”

“…Virtual reality (VR) experiences can cause uncomfortable body states called cybersickness or VR sickness. Depending on the experimental setup, 60-80% of users reported some symptoms of cybersickness (Ahn et al 2020;Kim et al 2005), and the discomfort can last an hour or up to 5 h after the VR experience (Rebenitsch and Owen 2016;Regan and Price 1994). Three common symptoms are frequently observed during cybersickness; nausea, disorientation, and oculomotor discomfort (Kennedy et al 1993).…”

Electroencephalogram microstates and functional connectivity of cybersickness

“…Additionally, a study confirmed a reduced visual–vestibular interaction in monkeys using visual motion stimulation ( Chen et al, 2011 ), and nausea reduced connectivity between the right and left V1 ( Toschi et al, 2017 ). The tendency to feel motion sickness decreased with a lowered gap between the left and right using a simulator and tDCS ( Arshad et al, 2015 ; Ahn et al, 2020 ). Therefore, our study showed that cybersickness reduced the connectivity of the visual–vestibular network as confirmed earlier by the microstate analysis, which is consistent with the results of previous studies.…”

Identifying physiological correlates of cybersickness using heartbeat-evoked potential analysis

“…Because of cybersickness, the participants showed impaired response inhibition and changes in the N2 and P3 components. In Ahn et al (2020), the participants watched 200 trials of short VR scenes (6 s) consisting of an accelerated or constant velocity under EEG recording. The results indicated increased P3 amplitudes during the viewing of accelerated moving conditions, albeit this was only for the participants who reported more severe discomfort.…”