Revenge of the Sick: A Meta-Analysis of Washout Periods in Cybersickness Research

Cybersickness remains a major barrier to the widespread adoption of virtual reality (VR) technologies, motivating researchers to investigate its causes and mitigation strategies through comparative human-subjects studies. These experiments may employ either within- or between-subjects designs. Although within-subjects designs require fewer participants and potentially offer higher statistical power, researchers need to wash out carryover effects of cybersickness symptoms before each session to avoid confounding the results. Prior studies have employed washout periods of varying lengths; some required testing conditions on different days, while others allowed only short breaks of less than 15 minutes. Although shorter washout periods are more convenient for experimenters, their impact on study outcomes has not been systematically investigated. In this work, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the effects of study design and washout period length on cybersickness self-reports measured with the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). We found that short washout periods reduce statistical power compared to long washout periods or between-subjects designs. Based on these findings, we provide guidelines to help researchers design more reliable cybersickness studies and improve the generalizability of their results.