Virtual Reality Games: A Study About the Level of Interaction vs. Narrative and the Gender in Presence and Cybersickness

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) games have the potential to produce immersive experiences. To better explore the potential of VR games, it becomes necessary to understand what affects the player's presence in VR games. This work measures and compares the levels of presence and cybersickness in VR environments. Two games with different levels of interaction and narrative were compared. Presence and cybersickness were measured in a sample of 32 subjects using the IPQp questionnaire and a Portuguese version of the SSQ respectively.The results indicate that there were no differences in presence and cybersickness between the interaction and the narrative dimensions. To extend the study, the gender of participants was also considered an independent variable where we found significant differences in the metrics of presence and experienced realism, nausea and disorientation with female participants getting higher scores.

Motion Sickness in Virtual Reality: An Empirical Evaluation

“…Researches indicate that multiple factors are held responsible for inducing motion sickness in VR systems. Recent studies [7], [16], [22]- [28] have exposed multiple factors associated with motion sickness induced by VR systems. These factors include but are not limited to: gender differences, virtual environment genre, VR experiences, graphical properties, virtual environment illuminance and motion sickness experiences.…”

“…Individual differences such as gender is an important variable associated with the emergence of motion sickness in VR systems [29]. A few researchers have used the metrics of nausea and oculomotor to assess the motion sickness scores in gender difference [7], [16], [23]. Their findings set forth that women are comparatively more prone to motion sickness than men.…”

“…The result of the study indicates significant differences of motion sickness scores between male and female VR participants. Another research was conducted to investigate the amount of motion sickness considering different level of interaction in two VR games [16]. The researchers examined gender as an independent variable, and their study reports higher sickness rates for females in both VR games.…”

“…To analyze the impact of motion sickness in VR systems, previous studies have considered multiple factors of motion sickness individually. Factors include but not limited to gender [16], experience with VR [7] and type of virtual environments [17]. In addition, a few researchers [18]- [20] have also contemplated physiological factors such as heart rate [18], [19] and blood pressure [20] and subsequently reported the association of these factors with the motion sickness induced by VR systems.…”

Avaliando a Presença Espacial e Auto Presença quanto ao aprendizado no domínio afetivo

“…Dentre os conceitos que permeiam a RV, destaca-se o conceito de presença, que diz respeito a resposta do usuário em um ambiente gerado por computador, isto é, se o mesmo se sente dentro do ambiente virtual, mesmo que ele esteja fisicamente presente em um ambiente completamente diferente [10]. Visto a importância desse conceito, pode-se utilizar a presença como uma forma de avaliação da eficácia de um ambiente virtual, através dos questionários de presença [11][12] [13].…”