Effects of spatial frequency of a vertically striped rotating drum on vection-induced motion sickness

The present study investigated the effects of differential spatial frequencies of a vertically striped, horizontally rotating drum on the observer's frequency of eye nystagmus, perceived velocity of self-motion, and symptoms of motion sickness.

Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, each of 10 subjects viewed 1 min of an optokinetic rotating drum at the speed of 10 rpm covered with 6, 12, 24, 48, and 96 pairs of black and white stripes, presented in counterbalanced order. The results indicated that subjects perceived significantly stronger circular vection (p < 0.05) and generated significantly higher frequencies of eye nystagmus (p < 0.05) when they were viewing 24 pairs of black and white stripes than when they were viewing any of the other combinations of 6, 12, 48, or 96 black and white stripes. In Experiment 2, 100 highly susceptible subjects viewed 16 min of an optokinetic rotating drum covered with one of the five different numbers of black and white stripe pairs: 6, 12, 24, 48, and 96. The results indicated that subjects in the group viewing 24 moving contrasts perceived significantly stronger circular vection (p < 0.001), reported significantly more severe symptoms of motion sickness (p < 0.001), and showed significantly greater ratios of EGG 4-9 cycles per minute spectral intensity between drum rotation and baseline periods (p < 0.004) than those in the groups of viewing 6, or 96 moving contrasts.

These results demonstrated that the severity of vection-induced motion sickness is affected by differential spatial frequencies of the stripes of the rotating drum and may be affected by number of horizontal eye movements.