VR Sickness Adaptation With Ramped Optic Flow Transfers From Abstract To Realistic Environments

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Neuroscience
• Perceptual Psychology

Background:

• Virtual reality (VR) sickness is a significant barrier to widespread VR adoption.
• It is often caused by a sensory conflict between simulated self-motion and physical movement.
• Current mitigation strategies can be complex and lead to inconsistent user experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate a novel approach for reducing VR sickness by training users' adaptive perceptual mechanisms.
• To assess the effectiveness of gradual adaptation to optic flow in abstract environments.
• To determine if adaptation to abstract environments transfers to more naturalistic VR settings.

Main Methods:

• Recruited users susceptible to VR sickness with limited VR experience.
• Measured baseline sickness in a naturalistic VR environment.
• Exposed participants to progressively increasing optic flow strength in abstract environments over successive days.
• Re-measured sickness in the naturalistic environment to assess adaptation transfer.

Main Results:

• VR sickness measures significantly decreased with successive daily exposures.
• Adaptation to optic flow in abstract environments was successful.
• The acquired adaptation maintained its effectiveness when participants returned to the naturalistic VR environment.

Conclusions:

• Gradual adaptation training in controlled, abstract VR environments can effectively reduce VR sickness susceptibility.
• This method offers a promising, user-centric approach to increase VR accessibility.
• Adaptation is transferable across different VR visual environments.