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1. Field-of-View Restriction to Reduce VR Sickness Does Not Impede Spatial Learning in Women

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3448304  

   Adhanom, Isayas Berhe ; Al-Zayer, Majed ; Macneilage, Paul ; Folmer, Eelke ( June 2021 , ACM Transactions on Applied Perception)

   null (Ed.)

   Women are more likely to experience virtual reality (VR) sickness than men, which could pose a major challenge to the mass market success of VR. Because VR sickness often results from a visual-vestibular conflict, an effective strategy to mitigate conflict is to restrict the user’s field-of-view (FOV) during locomotion. Sex differences in spatial cognition have been well researched, with several studies reporting that men exhibit better spatial navigation performance in desktop three-dimensional environments than women. However, additional research suggests that this sex difference can be mitigated by providing a larger FOV as this increases the availability of landmarks, which women tend to rely on more than men. Though FOV restriction is already a widely used strategy for VR headsets to minimize VR sickness, it is currently not well understood if it impedes spatial learning in women due to decreased availability of landmarks. Our study (n=28, 14 men and 14 women) found that a dynamic FOV restrictor was equally effective in reducing VR sickness in both sexes, and no sex differences in VR sickness incidence were found. Our study did find a sex difference in spatial learning ability, but an FOV restrictor did not impede spatial learning in either sex. 

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2. Assessing vignetting as a means to reduce VR sickness during amplified head rotations

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3225153.3225162  

   Norouzi, Nahal ; Bruder, Gerd ; Welch, Greg ( January 2018 , ACM Symposium on Applied Perception 2018)

   Redirected and amplified head movements have the potential to provide more natural interaction with virtual environments (VEs) than using controller-based input, which causes large discrepancies between visual and vestibular self-motion cues and leads to increased VR sickness. However, such amplified head movements may also exacerbate VR sickness symptoms over no amplification. Several general methods have been introduced to reduce VR sickness for controller-based input inside a VE, including a popular vignetting method that gradually reduces the field of view. In this paper, we investigate the use of vignetting to reduce VR sickness when using amplified head rotations instead of controllerbased input. We also investigate whether the induced VR sickness is a result of the user’s head acceleration or velocity by introducing two different modes of vignetting, one triggered by acceleration and the other by velocity. Our dependent measures were pre and post VR sickness questionnaires as well as estimated discomfort levels that were assessed each minute of the experiment. Our results show interesting effects between a baseline condition without vignetting, as well as the two vignetting methods, generally indicating that the vignetting methods did not succeed in reducing VR sickness for most of the participants and, instead, lead to a significant increase. We discuss the results and potential explanations of our findings. 

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3. Reduction of cybersickness in head mounted displays use: A systematic review and taxonomy of current strategies

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2023.1027552  

   Ang, Samuel ; Quarles, John ( March 2023 , Frontiers in Virtual Reality)

   This literature review examines the existing research into cybersickness reduction with regards to head mounted display use. Cybersickness refers to a collection of negative symptoms sometimes experienced as the result of being immersed in a virtual environment, such as nausea, dizziness, or eye strain. These symptoms can prevent individuals from utilizing virtual reality (VR) technologies, so discovering new methods of reducing them is critical. Our objective in this literature review is to provide a better picture of what cybersickness reduction techniques exist, the quantity of research demonstrating their effectiveness, and the virtual scenes testing has taken place in. This will help to direct researches towards promising avenues, and illuminate gaps in the literature. Following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses statement, we obtained a batch of 1,055 papers through the use of software aids. We selected 88 papers that examine potential cybersickness reduction approaches. Our acceptance criteria required that papers examined malleable conditions that could be conceivably modified for everyday use, examined techniques in conjunction with head mounted displays, and compared cybersickness levels between two or more user conditions. These papers were sorted into categories based on their general approach to combating cybersickness, and labeled based on the presence of statistically significant results, the use of virtual vehicles, the level of visual realism, and the virtual scene contents used in evaluation of their effectiveness. In doing this we have created a snapshot of the literature to date so that researchers may better understand what approaches are being researched, and the types of virtual experiences used in their evaluation. Keywords: Virtual reality cybersickness Simulator Sickness Visually induced motion sickness reduction Systematic review Head mounted display. 

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4. VR Sickness Adaptation With Ramped Optic Flow Transfers From Abstract To Realistic Environments

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.848001  

   Adhanom, Isayas ; Halow, Savannah ; Folmer, Eelke ; MacNeilage, Paul ( May 2022 , Frontiers in Virtual Reality)

   VR sickness is a major concern for many users as VR continues its expansion towards widespread everyday use. VR sickness is thought to arise, at least in part, due to the user’s intolerance of conflict between the visually simulated self-motion and actual physical movement. Many mitigation strategies involve consistently modifying the visual stimulus to reduce its impact on the user, but this individualized approach can have drawbacks in terms of complexity of implementation and non-uniformity of user experience. This study presents a novel alternative approach that involves training the user to better tolerate the adverse stimulus by tapping into natural adaptive perceptual mechanisms. In this study, we recruited users with limited VR experience that reported susceptibility to VR sickness. Baseline sickness was measured as participants navigated a rich and naturalistic visual environment. Then, on successive days, participants were exposed to optic flow in a more abstract visual environment, and strength of the optic flow was successively increased by increasing the visual contrast of the scene, because strength of optic flow and the resulting vection are thought to be major causes of VR sickness. Sickness measures decreased on successive days, indicating that adaptation was successful. On the final day, participants were again exposed to the rich and naturalistic visual environment, and the adaptation was maintained, demonstrating that it is possible for adaptation to transfer from more abstract to richer and more naturalistic environments. These results demonstrate that gradual adaptation to increasing optic flow strength in well-controlled, abstract environments allows users to gradually reduce their susceptibility to sickness, thereby increasing VR accessibility for those prone to sickness. 

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5. Motor Signals Mediate Stationarity Perception

   https://doi.org/10.1163/22134808-bja10111  

   Halow, Savannah ; Liu, James ; Folmer, Eelke ; MacNeilage, Paul R. ( October 2023 , Multisensory Research)

   Head movement relative to the stationary environment gives rise to congruent vestibular and visual optic-flow signals. The resulting perception of a stationary visual environment, referred to herein as stationarity perception, depends on mechanisms that compare visual and vestibular signals to evaluate their congruence. Here we investigate the functioning of these mechanisms and their dependence on fixation behavior as well as on the activeversuspassive nature of the head movement. Stationarity perception was measured by modifying the gain on visual motion relative to head movement on individual trials and asking subjects to report whether the gain was too low or too high. Fitting a psychometric function to the data yields two key parameters of performance. The mean is a measure of accuracy, and the standard deviation is a measure of precision. Experiments were conducted using a head-mounted display with fixation behavior monitored by an embedded eye tracker. During active conditions, subjects rotated their heads in yaw ∼15 deg/s over ∼1 s. Each subject’s movements were recorded and played backviarotating chair during the passive condition. During head-fixed and scene-fixed fixation the fixation target moved with the head or scene, respectively. Both precision and accuracy were better during active than passive head movement, likely due to increased precision on the head movement estimate arising from motor prediction and neck proprioception. Performance was also better during scene-fixed than head-fixed fixation, perhaps due to decreased velocity of retinal image motion and increased precision on the retinal image motion estimate. These results reveal how the nature of head and eye movements mediate encoding, processing, and comparison of relevant sensory and motor signals.

    

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