Cybersickness Abatement From Repeated Exposure Generalizes Across Experiences

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Virtual Reality Safety
• User Experience Research

Background:

• Cybersickness (VR sickness) hinders virtual reality (VR) usability.
• Cybersickness Abatement from Repeated Exposure (CARE) shows reduced sickness with repeated VR stimulus.
• Generalizability of CARE across different VR experiences is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if Cybersickness Abatement from Repeated Exposure (CARE) benefits transfer to novel virtual reality (VR) contexts.
• To determine if prior exposure in one VR game reduces cybersickness in a different VR game.
• To explore the implications of CARE generalizability for VR application design.

Main Methods:

• Participants were divided into Repeated Exposure and Single Exposure groups.
• The Repeated Exposure group played one VR game for three days, followed by a novel VR game on day four.
• The Single Exposure group played the novel VR game only once.

Main Results:

• Cybersickness was significantly lower on Day 4 for the Repeated Exposure group compared to the Single Exposure group.
• This reduction in cybersickness occurred regardless of the VR games used in the initial three days of exposure.
• Findings suggest CARE benefits generalize across distinct VR environments, tasks, and locomotion interfaces.

Conclusions:

• Cybersickness Abatement from Repeated Exposure (CARE) benefits are transferable to new virtual reality (VR) contexts.
• Systematic exposure to VR can be an effective strategy for reducing cybersickness.
• This research supports the use of varied VR experiences to enhance user tolerance and application usability.