Toward systematic control of cybersickness

Visually induced motion sickness, or cybersickness, has been well documented in all kinds of vehicular simulators and in many virtual environments. It probably occurs in all virtual environments. Cybersickness has many known determinants, including (a short list) field-of-view, flicker, transport delays, duration of exposure, gender, and susceptibility to motion sickness. Since many of these determinants can be controlled, a major objective in designing virtual environments is to hold cybersickness below a specified level a specified proportion of the time. More than 20 years ago C. W. Simon presented a research strategy based on fractional factorial experiments that was capable in principle of realizing this objective. With one notable exception, however, this strategy was not adopted by the human factors community. The main reason was that implementing Simon\u27s strategy was a major undertaking, very time-consuming, and very costly. In addition, many investigators were not satisfied that Simon had adequately addressed issues of statistical reliability. The present paper proposes a modified Simonian approach to the sate objective (holding cybersickness below specified standards) with some loss in the range of application but a greatly reduced commitment of resources

Security, Privacy and Safety Risk Assessment for Virtual Reality Learning Environment Applications

Social Virtual Reality based Learning Environments (VRLEs) such as vSocial render instructional content in a three-dimensional immersive computer experience for training youth with learning impediments. There are limited prior works that explored attack vulnerability in VR technology, and hence there is a need for systematic frameworks to quantify risks corresponding to security, privacy, and safety (SPS) threats. The SPS threats can adversely impact the educational user experience and hinder delivery of VRLE content. In this paper, we propose a novel risk assessment framework that utilizes attack trees to calculate a risk score for varied VRLE threats with rate and duration of threats as inputs. We compare the impact of a well-constructed attack tree with an adhoc attack tree to study the trade-offs between overheads in managing attack trees, and the cost of risk mitigation when vulnerabilities are identified. We use a vSocial VRLE testbed in a case study to showcase the effectiveness of our framework and demonstrate how a suitable attack tree formalism can result in a more safer, privacy-preserving and secure VRLE system.Comment: Tp appear in the CCNC 2019 Conferenc

Temporal Development of Sense of Presence and Cybersickness during an Immersive VR Experience

Following the advances in modern head-mounted displays, research exploring the human experience of virtual environments has seen a surge in interest. Researchers have examined how to promote individuals’ sense of presence, i.e., their experience of “being” in the VE, as well as to diminish the negative side effects of cybersickness. Studies investigating the relationship between sense of presence and cybersickness have reported heterogeneous results. Authors that found a positive relation have argued that the phenomena have shared cognitive underpinnings. However, recent literature has reported that positive associations can be explained by the confounding factor of immersion. The current study aims to investigate how cybersickness and sense of presence are associated and develop over time. During the experiment, participants were exposed to a virtual roller coaster and presented orally with questions aimed to quantify their perceived sense of presence and cybersickness. The results of the experiment indicate that cybersickness and sense of presence are both modulated by the time spent in the virtual setting. The utilized short measures for sense of presence and cybersickness were found to be reliable alternatives to multi-item questionnaires.publishedVersio

Taking real steps in virtual nature: a randomized blinded trial

Studies show that green exercise (i.e., physical activity in the presence of nature) can provide the synergistic psychophysiological benefits of both physical exercise and nature exposure. The present study aimed to investigate the extent to which virtual green exercise may extend these benefits to people that are unable to engage in active visits to natural environments, as well as to promote enhanced exercise behavior. After watching a video validated to elicit sadness, participants either performed a treadmill walk while exposed to one of two virtual conditions, which were created using different techniques (360° video or 3D model), or walked on a treadmill while facing a blank wall (control). Quantitative and qualitative data were collected in relation to three overarching themes: “Experience,” “Physical engagement” and “Psychophysiological recovery.” Compared to control, greater enjoyment was found in the 3D model, while lower walking speed was found in the 360° video. No significant differences among conditions were found with respect to heart rate, perceived exertion, or changes in blood pressure and affect. The analysis of qualitative data provided further understanding on the participants’ perceptions and experiences. These findings indicate that 3D model-based virtual green exercise can provide some additional benefits compared to indoor exercise, while 360° video-based virtual green exercise may result in lower physical engagement.publishedVersio

Pre-Exposure Cybersickness Assessment Within a Chronic Pain Population in Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) is being increasingly explored as an adjunctive therapy for distraction from symptoms of chronic pain. However, using VR often causes cybersickness; a condition with symptoms similar to those of motion and simulator sickness. Cybersickness is commonly assessed using self-report questionnaires, such as the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ), and is traditionally conducted post-exposure. It’s usually safe to assume a zero baseline of cybersickness as participants are not anticipated to be exhibiting any sickness symptoms pre-exposure. However, amongst populations such as chronic pain patients, it’s not unusual to experience symptoms of their condition or medication which could have a confounding influence on cybersickness symptom reporting. Therefore, in population groups where illness and medication use is common, assuming baseline is not necessarily desirable. This study aimed to investigate cybersickness baseline recordings amongst a chronic pain population, and highlights how deviations from an assumed baseline may incorrectly infer adverse effects arising from VR exposure. A repeated measures study design was used, in which twelve participants were assessed pre and post VR exposure via SSQ. Significant differences were found between actual and assumed pre-exposure baseline scores. Furthermore, we found significant differences between actual and assumed increases in cybersickness scores from baseline to post exposure. This study highlights that clinical sub-populations cannot be assumed to have a zero baseline SSQ score, and this should be taken into consideration when evaluating the usability of VR systems or interventions for participants from different demographics

Functional sophistication in human escape

Animals including humans must cope with immediate threat and make rapid decisions to survive. Without much leeway for cognitive or motor errors, this poses a formidable computational problem. Utilizing fully immersive virtual reality with 13 natural threats, we examined escape decisions in N = 59 humans. We show that escape goals are dynamically updated according to environmental changes. The decision whether and when to escape depends on time-to-impact, threat identity and predicted trajectory, and stable personal characteristics. Its implementation appears to integrate secondary goals such as behavioral affordances. Perturbance experiments show that the underlying decision algorithm exhibits planning properties and can integrate novel actions. In contrast, rapid information-seeking and foraging-suppression are only partly devaluation-sensitive. Instead of being instinctive or hardwired stimulus-response patterns, human escape decisions integrate multiple variables in a flexible computational architecture. Taken together, we provide steps toward a computational model of how the human brain rapidly solves survival challenges

Machine learning methods for the study of cybersickness: a systematic review

This systematic review offers a world-first critical analysis of machine learning methods and systems, along with future directions for the study of cybersickness induced by virtual reality (VR). VR is becoming increasingly popular and is an important part of current advances in human training, therapies, entertainment, and access to the metaverse. Usage of this technology is limited by cybersickness, a common debilitating condition experienced upon VR immersion. Cybersickness is accompanied by a mix of symptoms including nausea, dizziness, fatigue and oculomotor disturbances. Machine learning can be used to identify cybersickness and is a step towards overcoming these physiological limitations. Practical implementation of this is possible with optimised data collection from wearable devices and appropriate algorithms that incorporate advanced machine learning approaches. The present systematic review focuses on 26 selected studies. These concern machine learning of biometric and neuro-physiological signals obtained from wearable devices for the automatic identification of cybersickness. The methods, data processing and machine learning architecture, as well as suggestions for future exploration on detection and prediction of cybersickness are explored. A wide range of immersion environments, participant activity, features and machine learning architectures were identified. Although models for cybersickness detection have been developed, literature still lacks a model for the prediction of first-instance events. Future research is pointed towards goal-oriented data selection and labelling, as well as the use of brain-inspired spiking neural network models to achieve better accuracy and understanding of complex spatio-temporal brain processes related to cybersickness

The simulator sickness questionnaire, and the erroneous zero baseline assumption

Cybersickness assessment is predominantly conducted via the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). Literature has highlighted that assumptions which are made concerning baseline assessment may be incorrect, especially the assumption that healthy participants enter with no or minimal associated symptoms. An online survey study was conducted to explore further this assumption amongst a general population sample (N = 93). Results for this study suggest that the current baseline assumption may be inherently incorrect

An educational experience in ancient Rome to evaluate the impact of virtual reality on human learning processes

Immersive Virtual Reality technology has recently gained significant attention and is expanding its applications to various fields. It also has many advantages in education, as it allows to both simplify the explanation of complex topics through their visualization, and explore lost or unreachable environments. To evaluate the impact of immersive experiences on learning outcomes we developed an educational experience that lets users visit an ancient Roman Domus and provides information about daily life in Roman times. We designed a between-subjects data collection to investigate learning ratio, user experience, and cybersickness of participants through anonymous questionnaires. We collected 76 responses of participants (18–35 y.o.) divided into three conditions: a Immersive Virtual Reality experience, a slide-based lecture and a 2D desktop-based experience. Our results show that the virtual reality experience is considered more engaging and as effective as more traditional 2D and slide-based experiences in terms of learning