The effect of environment characteristics and user interaction on levels of virtual environment sickness

Abstract

Data are reported for symptoms of virtual environment (VE) sickness that arose in 10 behavioral experiments. In total, 134 participants took part in the experiments and were immersed in VEs for approximately 150 hours. Nineteen of the participants reported major symptoms and two were physically sick. The tasks that participants ' performed ranged from manipulating virtual objects that they "held" in their hands, to traveling distances of 10 km or more while navigating virtual mazes. The data are interpreted within a framework provided by the virtual environment description and classification system. Environmental dimensions and visual complexity had little effect on the severity of participants ' symptoms. Long periods of immersion tended to produce major ocular-motor symptoms. Nausea was affected by the type of movement made to control participants ' view, and was particularly severe when participants had to spend substantial amounts of time (3%) looking steeply downwards at their virtual feet. Contrary to expectations, large rapid movements had little effect on most participants, and neither did movements that were not under participants ' direct control.