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Virtual reality sickness typically results from visual-vestibular conflict. Because self-motion from optical flow is driven most strongly by motion at the periphery of the retina, reducing the user’s field-of-view (FOV) during locomotion has proven to be an effective strategy to minimize visual vestibular conflict and VR sickness. Current FOV restrictor implementations reduce the user’s FOV by rendering a restrictor whose center is fixed at the center of the head mounted display (HMD), which is effective when the user’s eye gaze is aligned with head gaze. However, during eccentric eye gaze, users may look at the FOV restrictor itself, exposing them to peripheral optical flow which could lead to increased VR sickness. To address these limitations, we develop a foveated FOV restrictor and we explore the effect of dynamically moving the center of the FOV restrictor according to the user’s eye gaze position. We conducted a user study (n=22) where each participant uses a foveated FOV restrictor and a head-fixed FOV restrictor while navigating a virtual environment. We found no statistically significant difference in VR sickness measures or noticeability between both restrictors. However, there was a significant difference in eye gaze behavior, as measured by eye gaze dispersion, with the foveated FOV restrictor allowing participants to have a wider visual scan area compared to the head-fixed FOV restrictor, which confined their eye gaze to the center of the FOV.
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The Effects of Secondary Task Demands on Cybersickness in Active Exploration Virtual Reality Experiences
Active exploration in virtual reality (VR) involves users navigating immersive virtual environments, going from one place to another. While navigating, users often engage in secondary tasks that require attentional resources, as in the case of distracted driving. Inspired by research generally studying the effects of task demands on cybersickness (CS), we investigated how the attentional demands specifically associated with secondary tasks performed during exploration affect CS. Downstream of this, we studied how increased attentional demands from secondary tasks affect spatial memory and navigational performance. We discuss the results of a multi-factorial between-subjects study, manipulating a secondary task's demand across two levels and studying its effects on CS in two different sickness-inducing levels of an exploration experience. The secondary task's demand was manipulated by parametrically varying n in an aural n-back working memory task and the provocativeness of the experience was manipulated by varying how frequently users experienced a yaw-rotational reorientation effect during the exploration. Results revealed that increases in the secondary task's demand increased sickness levels, also resulting in a higher temporal onset rate, especially when the experience was not already highly sickening. Increased attentional demand from the secondary task also vitiated navigational performance and spatial memory. Overall, increased demands from secondary tasks performed during navigation produce deleterious effects on the VR experience.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2007435
- PAR ID:
- 10527837
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1077-2626
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2745 to 2755
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2024.3372080
