Cybersickness: an experimental study to isolate the effects of rotational scene oscillations

Abstract

Head-coupled virtual reality systems can cause symptoms of sickness (cybersickness). A study has been conducted to investigate the effects of scene oscillations on the level and types of cybersickness. Sixteen male subjects participated in the experiments. They were exposed to four 20-minute virtual simulation sessions, in a balanced order with 10 days separation. The 4 simulation sessions exposed the subjects to similar visual scene oscillation in different axis: pitch axis, yaw axis, roll axis and no oscillation (speed: 30/spl deg//s, range: +/-60/spl deg/). Verbal ratings of nausea level were taken at 5-minute intervals and sickness symptoms were measured before and after the exposure using the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). Significant differences were found between the no oscillation condition and the oscillating conditions. With scene oscillation, nausea ratings increased significantly after 5-minute exposure for all the oscillation axes (pitch, yaw, and roll axes). Total sickness scores were obtained from the SSQ and their profiles with different scene oscillation axes were presented.