The Effect of Field-of-View Restriction on Sex Bias in VR Sickness and Spatial Navigation Performance

Abstract

Recent studies show that women are more susceptible to visually-induced VR sickness, which might explain the low adoption rate of VR technology among women. Reducing field-of-view (FOV) during locomotion is already a widely used strategy to reduce VR sickness as it blocks peripheral optical flow perception and mitigates visual/vestibular conflict. Prior studies show that men are more adept at 3D spatial navigation than women, though this sex bias can be minimized by providing women with a larger FOV. Our study provides insight into the relationship between sex and FOV restriction with respect to VR sickness and spatial navigation performance which seem to conflict. We find the use of an FOV restrictor to be effective in mitigating VR sickness in both sexes while we did not find a negative effect of FOV restriction on spatial navigation performance.