Assessment of individual differences for aftereffect of viewing autostereoscopic 3D display

The representation of images on autostereoscopic 3D display often suffers from visual fatigue induced by stereoscopic images (VFSI) and visually induced motion sickness (VIMS), deriving from conflict between accommodation and convergence and from mismatches between vestibule system and visual system of viewers, respectively. In this study, a subjective experiment was conducted to investigate the implications of age and gender on the visual discomfort when watching the 3D video clips with four levels of parallax on autostereoscopic 3D display. This study found that the age of observers significantly affected both VFSI and VIMS symptoms. The young observers reported more serious VFSI and VIMS symptoms than the middle and elderly, while the three age groups had significantly pairwise difference for VIMS symptoms. Although gender differences did not exist in the ratio of VFSI symptoms, females had significant higher VIMS scores than males. The effect of parallax on symptom scores varied with age and gender. The elderly and male observers could endure larger parallax when compared to other groups. Furthermore, considering viewing safety for observers, it is recommended to limit parallax to a threshold of 40′.