Researchers Can Now Predict Motion Sickness

[Hiro_Protag0nist]

"Yeah, she's feelin it a bit":



In the last month there has been a lot of discussion within the virtual reality (VR) industry around ways to combat the effects of motion sickness for users. Sony put through a patent recently that looks to see technology come to their headset to help reduce the impact of motion sickness. Fraunhofer also has a new headset in development that leverages new lens technology to help users overcome sickness and headaches. Now, researchers at the University of Waterloo have revealed that they have made progress towards predicting who is likely to feel sick from using VR technology.

In a recent study, the researchers at the University of Waterloo found that they could predict whether an individual will experience cybersickness (motion sickness caused by using VR) by measuring how long they sway in response to a moving visual feild. The researchers believe that this knowledge will help them to develop counteractions to cybersickness which could allow suffers to enjoy VR experiences even more.

“Knowing who might suffer from cybersickness, and why, allows us to develop targeted interventions to help reduce, or even prevent, the onset of symptoms,” said Michael Barnett-Cowan, neuroscience professor in the Department of Kinesiology and senior author of the paper. “Considering this technology is in a growth phase with industries such as gaming, design, medicine and automotive starting to use it, understanding who is negatively impacted and how to help them is crucial.”

Full article:

https://www.vrfocus.com/2018/09/researchers-at-the-university-of-waterloo-can-now-predict-motion-sic...

[kevinw729]

I have noticed a lot of click-bait "studies" in the VR scene rushing to publish and get coverage - When you dig into their research you also see they are very shallow. The Sim-Sickness research we had been promoted from Universities and manufacturers of any gravitas did not materialise in the three years. Much of this stifled by the legal fears of "liability" (to their great shame). That no authoritarian study into age, inducements and symptoms of Sim-Sickness has been carried out is one of the great missed opportunities of this phase of VR. And that we still have to suffer "baited" articles such as this just underlines the issues we will need to deal with moving forward.

[Hiro_Protag0nist]

The article from VRFocus appears to be useless, i think we'd need to look into the research to see if they actually succeeded in anything.

[LZoltowski]

VR sickness is the disparity between visual queues and inner ear (our biological gyroscope) queues. 

Some people who are very susceptible to VR sickness already have a slight disparity between the two in real life. Meaning they are very close to the "threshold" that rings alarm bells in the brain.

Some people have a perfect sync irl, meaning their "threshold" is a lot higher, and experience little to no VR sickness.

Like with all humans, everyone is somewhere on the scale.

However since the disparity is Visual Cortex to inner ear, and not the other way around (like car sickness, where inner ear senses motion but the eyes do not) it's possible to acclimate to VR sickness over time, it seems its easier to override the visual queues, than inner ear.

This is from the papers I have read over time.

[kernow]

Commenting on that pic. Her problem isn't motion or VR sickness... Her problem was that she tried to eat half her body weight in cream of corn in less than an hour. Milk gallon challenge effects apply to cream of corn, too, lady.
😛

[kevinw729]

LZoltowski said:

......
This is from the papers I have read over time.

I hope you had a chance to read the paper on sim-sickness and perceptional disconnect that we did when at Walt Disney back in 1997. The reality is that even with performance enhancement the fundamentals stay the same.

But the key issue is where are the other papers - were we not to see a Oculus R&D joint paper back in 2017?

[Anonymous]

Pah! This is something that only inferior people need to worry about. Far superior human beings, such as my good self, are completely immune to sim sickness.

Incidentally, I did throw up like that once when I was on a date 20-odd years or so ago. I managed to get food poisoning when I ate a meal before I took this girl to the cinema. Needless to say I didn't get a shag at the end of the night lol :blush: 😄 😄 😄

[falken76]

I suffered from sim sickness when I first got my rift.  I also used to suffer from motion sickness in long car rides so I needed to use Dramamine everytime we went on a road trip.  In BOTH cases I acclimated to the condition with more exposure.  I thought that new VR link port on the new cards was supposed to do something with motion sickness, or is this the beginning stages of a standardization of the connection port for VR devices?

I don't know what the answer to this is, but feeling dizzy is definately a deal breaker for people and I get the feeling the majority not the minority of people are experiencing motion sickness.  My friend that bought the rift a right after I did NEVER plays it because of motion sickness.  My brother and I have been trying to get him to play Onward (Which we bought for him so he has it) for the last year and a half.  But he keeps putting it off because he's afraid he's going to get self induced flu symptoms.  And he's an existing customer! Never uses his rift because nearly everything makes him feel sick.  His son on the other hand, practically lives in Rec Room.

[kevinw729]

One of the areas of research that we had hoped from the Oculus R&D study had been persistent usage, but as the legal team is very concerned on "exposure" we will have to wait on the UCLA reserach.

[Anonymous]

My superior brain could be seen in two different ways though...one good and one bad.

Good: When the aliens invade and take over, people like me with superior noggins will be Overseers over the rest of the human race and will be given privileges over the slaves.

Bad: When the aliens invade and take over people like me with superior noggins will be seen as a threat and be exterminated.