The experimental elicitation of motion sickness using a short arm centrifuge or a rotating chair surrounded by a striped cylindrical enclosure failed to reveal any systematic group or consistent individual relationship between changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature and the appearance of symptoms of motion sickness. A study of the influence of vision on susceptability to motion sickness during sudden stop simulation shows that having the eyes open during any part of the sudden stop assessment is more stressful than having them closed throughout the test. Subjects were found to be highly susceptible to motion sickness when tested in free fall and in high force phases of flight. The effect of touch and pressure cues on body orientation during rotation and in parabolic flight are considered as sensory as well as motor adaptation

Lackner, J. R.

English

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Produced by the NASA Center for Aerospace Information (CASI) 
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19810020210 2020-03-21T13:05:08+00:00Z
Quarterly Progress Report
NASA Contract NAS 9-15147
Vestibular Selecti-;n Criteria Development
Submitted to
Office of Life Sciences, L. B. Johnson Space Center
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Houston, Texas
/YfI'5)^AP
by
James R. Lackner	 , L,..
Principal Investigator
Department of Psychology
Brandeis University
Waltham, Massachusetts
June 1, 1981
(June 1, 1980 - April 1, 1981)
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CEITERI.A CEVELOEMtNT Quarterly Progress
Hepor.t, 1 Jun. 1980 - 1 Apr. 1981 (Brandeis
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Technical ObJectives
.
Our goal is to develop procedures for predicting an individual's
susceptibility to motion sickness during orbital space flight. To this and
we have been pursuing three interrelated directions of investigation:
1) determining what motion environments are particularly effective in eliciting
motion sickness and finding the extent to which an individual's susceptibility
in one motion environment correlates with his susceptibility in anther,
different motion environments,. 2) trying to develop a brief and simple
test for assessing susceptibility that will also be useful in determining
the extent to which a subject can adapt to stressful motion, 3) identifying
what forms of sensory conflict tend to elicit motion sickness. We are also
extending an analysis of the literature on motion sickness that has already
been prepared to deal also with the spfcific problem of selecting personnel
for orbital flight.
Progress Since QPR 6/8 0
1) Experimental Blicit_tion of Motion Sickness
As mentioned in our last two progress reports, we have been
developing a new test for assessing susceptibility to motion sickness. The
test involves a Stille -Werner short arm centrifuge (Model CF-rI) or a rotating
chair surrounded by a striped cyclindrical enclosure. During an experimental
session,, the subject, with eyes covered, is accelerated at 1S0/ sect to a
zonstant clockwise velocity of 3000/sec and maintained at this velocity for
30 seconds. The hydraulic brakes on the chair are then electricLily activated
and the chair is brought to a stop within 1 . S seconds. The subject then
remains at rest for 30 sec while various physiological measures and symptoms
of motion sickness are recorded. The experimental procedure is then repeated
until the subject has reached a motion sickness endpoint or a total of twenty
stops have been made with eyes closed. After the first twenty stops, the
subject ' s blindfold is removed and the procedure is repeated while the subject
1	 .	 P" . .,
2.
attempts to maintain a straight-ahead gaze. Testing continues until either,
the motion sicknes o, endpoint or twenty stops with eyes open has been achieved.
If the endpoint has not been reached, then the direction of rotation is
reversed and the test proceeds until either an endpoint or twenty additional
stops have been achieved. In practice, only one subject has yet progressed
this far without reaching an endpoint.
Three reports have now been completed and published on findings obtained
with this technique. 'Cho first report provides a detailed description of
the experimental device (t, aybiel and Lackner, 1980x). The second report
describes the relationship between developing symptoms of motion sickness
and changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature during exposure
to sudden.strp stimulation (Graybiel and Lackner, 1980b). The experimental
findings faced to show any systematic group or consistent individual
relationship between any of these parameters and the appearance of symptoms
of motion sickness. This lack of correlation suggests that biofeedback
control of the physiological variables studied is not likely to prevent the
expression of motion sickness symptomatology. The third report concerns the
influence of vision on susceptibility to motion sickness during sudden-stop
stimulation (Lackner and Graybiel, 1979a). This study showed that having
one's ayes open during any part of the sudden stop assessment is more stressful
than ha-.Ang them closed throughout. Copies of all three reports have been
appended to this report.
We are continuing to evaluate subjects in the free-fall and the increased
gravitoinertial phases of parabolic flight using the sudden-stop test. The
4	 findings, so far, are quite uniform; most subjects are more susceptible when
► 	 tested aloft either in the free-fall or increased force phases of flight,.
In fact, our findings, to date, indicate that subjects are equally susceptible
when tested in tree fall and in high force phases of flight. These changes
3.
in apparent susceptibility have to be considered in relation to the subject's
overall susceptibility in parabolic flight because the parabolas themiselves con-
stitute a highly stressful motion environment. We are currently testing More
Individuals in parabolic flight as well as on the ground to build up a sufficien-
tly large body of experimental evidence to be able to draw systematic conclusions
about how modifications in gravitoinertial force affect susceptibility to sudden-
stop stimulation.
One finding that has emerged consistentl y from our parabolic flight ex-eri-
ments is a dependence of the gain of the vestibulo-ocular. reflax 'VOR) on gravi-
toinertial force level. Gain decreases markedly in free fall and increases
markedly in high force phases of flight. The decrease in VOR gain in free fall
likely accounts for the disorientation and dizziness sometimes experienced by
astronauts when moving their heads in the early phases of orbital flight and
again after splashdown. Tt is well known from studies involving slow rotation
rooms that artificial modifications of the VOR are associated with motion sick-
ness symptomatology. Accordingly, we may well have identified one of the major
etiological factors in the elicitation of space motion sickness. A report
describing our findings is forthcoming (Lackner and Graybiel, in press).
2) Human Spatial Orientation in Free Fall
In the course of our earlier experiments on susceptibility to motion
Sickness during Z-axis i~ecumbent rotation (Graybiel and Lackner, 1977, 1979),
we made a number of systematic observations on how touch and pressure cues affect
apparent body, orientation during such rotation (Lackner and Graybiel, 1978a,b).
These studies have been extended to include evaluations in parabolic flight. On
the basis of these observations we have shown that a sense of one's orientation
is dependent on patterns or exteroceptive stimulation. In the absence of such
inputs during the free-fall phases of parabolic flight, subjects lose all sense
of body orientation and are aware only of the relative configurations of the
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different parts of their body. Those findings also provide a way of'understand-
ing many of the postural and visual illusions exporiesiced by astronauts in orbi-
tal space flight.(Gockner and Graybiel, 1979b).
Piny of thy+ subjects who have participated in our parabolic flight experi-
ments have reported motion aftereffects following the flights. These after-
effects are of interest because related phenomena ure experienced after being
on shipboard and after orbital flight. During parabolic flight aftereffects,
the body feels as if it is again undergoing periodic changes in force level be-
cause of motion of the substrate; st-rong apparent postural motion is accompanied
by visual motion of the surroundings.
These aftereffects differ in frequency and amplitude from the inducing
stimulus pattern, being always of much greater frequency and of lesser intensity;
moreover at times, only fragments of aftereffects are experienced. Because of
these differences, it seems unlikely that the aftereffects represent simple con-
tinuations of .centrally generated "patterns of opposite sign," although they
clearly represent the persistence of abnormal states of central activation. The
existence of these abnormal states is expressed most often when the overall pat-
tern and range of sensory stimulation of the body is diminished, such as when
the subject is lying down quietly in a darkened room; that is, the expression of
the aftereffects is most prominent against a relatively quiescent pattern of
sensory activity. Tt is possible to attribute the decreased intensity of the
aftereffects in relation to the intensity of the inducing pattern to the decay
of a centrally-generated compensatory pattern but it i:; not possible to inter-
pr6t the higher frequenc y of the aftereffects in like fashion or in terms of
other known physiological mechanisms. Quantitative studies are necessary in
which the frequency of the aftereffect is determined for a range of inducing
stimulus frequencies before a Plausible and physiologically consistent inter-
pretation can be sought.
^	 j
t	 5	 f	 u .
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Of epecial interest is the general referral of tbt postural aftereffects
to the surface on which the body is being supported. When a subject has a
parabolic flight aftereffect, his apparent body notion is usually experienced
as being due to motion of the substrate and the parts of his body in contact
with the surfact of support are felt to undergo periodic: changes in pressure
related to the apparent motion of the substrate. Thur., the subject not only
experiences a visual. and postural illusion but also experiences pressure changes
on his body surface such as would be present if the stationary substrate Mare,
in fact, moving. The actual pressure pattern oa the body is unchanging when
the subje(.t is prone or supine but, if he is standing, he may attempt to compen-
sate by muscular adjustments for the apparent motion of the substrate. Such
"compensation" can lead to disorientation and ataxia.
The present observations emphasize the complex processes involved in the
computation and maintenance of sensory and postural stability. When a subject
experiences strong body motion he also experiences visual motion in the same
direction and perceives pressure changes on his body; in other words, compensa-
tion is being made for the change in apparent body position just as if it were
a real change in position. The specific nature of the central changes induced
by parabolic flight maneuvers which give rise to apparent body motion remains
unclear; however, it should be noted that the inducing stimulation, the periodic
variation in gravitoinertial force acting on the body, affects not only the
vestibular receptor systems but also the touch, pressure, and kinesthetic re-
ceptor systems. Some contribution of the latter to the origin of the aftereffects
should not be ruled out without systematic experimentation because their contrib-
ution to human spatial orientation has recently been shown to be much more im-
portant than previously thought (Lackner and Graybiel, 1978,a,b, 1979). A report
I
6.
3) Skeletal Mscle Vibration
We have found that illusions of continuous body tilt or rotation can
be elicited by vibrating the appropriate postural muscles of subjects standing
In the dark (Lackner 4 Levine, 1999). The illusory motion so elicited seems in
many ways to be interpreted by the nervous system as if it were actual body mo-
tion. As mentioned in our last Q11R, one of our concerns has been to determine
whether illusory body motion invoked by muscle vibration will elicit symptoms
of motion sickness. We still have found little evidence for such an influence
but the patterns we have used have primarily involved constant velocity apparent
motion rather than acceleratory apparent motion. Accordingly--since motion sick-
ness is usually associated with acceleratory motion profiles.rather than constant
i	 velocity ones--an adequate test has not yet been achieved. We are currently
attempting to provide such a test. We are doing this by using "ramp" patterns
of increasing or decreasing vibration frequency and alternately stimulating
antagonistic muscles controlling body sway in the erect subject. Such stimula-
tion leads to the subject experiencing a rocking motion of his body. Using
these modified procedures we expect to be able to carry out a fair test of
r
whether apparent motion of the stationary body will elicit motion sickness.
4) Motion Sickness and Sensory-Motor Adaptation
One aspect of a sensory-conflict theory of motion sickness is the notion
that susceptibility gradually decreases because of adaptation to the conflict
situation. Graybiel has shown in many extensive studies of adaptation to cross-
coupled angular accelerations in stow rotation rooms that 1) initially head,
movements out of the axis of rotation elicit symptoms of motion sickness, 2) with
continued exposure symptoms gradually abate, and 3) after rotation is stopped
head movements again elicit symptoms until re-adaptation to the stationary en-
vironment is achieved. These studies provide an important potential way of
pre-adapting subjects to the unusual patterns of vestibular stimulation they
a	 .
J
7.
' would eneountcr in free fall or orbital flight. Adaptation would be speeded
up considerably if it were possible to use a passive exposure para4igm in which
the subject's whole body were moved rather than just his head. This would avoid
the fatigue that is associated with making large numbers of head mo^rements
actively.
However, before using passive exposure to cross-coupled angular accelera-
tions we wished to compare the effectiveness of active and passive movements in
generating adaptation to visual rearrangement, It has been claimed that adapta-
tion only occurs with active, not passive, body movements (Held, 1965; Held and
Hein, 1958) and this claim has been incorporated in recent models of the sensory
conflict theor 3 of motion sicknoes as a key element in adapting to sensory con-
flicts (Oman, 1980). Accordingly, we performed a series of experiments to re-
assess the role of active and passive movements in adaptation to visual rearrange-
ment and in oculomotor pursuit tracking of the hand.
The results of these experiments were unequivocal. Adaptation was equally
good with active and passive movements whenever exposure conditions differed
2n& in whether active or passive movements were involved. Similarly, when
conditions were carefully controlled oculomotor ' pursuit of the hand was equally
good for active and passive movements. The results are presented in blather and
Lackner (1980a,b,c) copies of which have been appended. We conclude that it is
practical to use passive movements in generating adaptation to sensory discord-
ances, and that sensory conflict theories which are based on active movement
I	 paradigms are misguided.
w,	 5) Development of Vestibular Selection Criteria
A report was submitted earlier containing a critical analysis of recent
motion sizkness literature (Lackner, 1978)'. This report is being updated and
Literature specifically relevant to selecting personnel for orbital flight is
being included.
Awl
a.
References
Grayb„el, A., and Lackner, J. R. Comparisons of susceptibility to motion
sickness during rotation at 30 RPM in the earth-horizontal, loo
 head-up,
and 100 head- down positions. Aviation,, Space and Environmental Medicine,
48, 7-11, 1977.
Graybiel, A., and Lackner, J. R. Rotation at 30 RPM about the Z
-axis after 6
hours in the 100
 hand-down position: Effect on susceptibility to motion
sickness. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 50, 390 -592, 1979
.au.rw. w w^ r. v
	 www+rwra rru.
Graybiel, A., and Lackner, J. R. A sudden -stop vestibulo visual test for rapid
assessment of motion sickness manifestations. Aviation, Space and En Vlron-
mental Medicine, 51, 21-23, 1980x.
Graybiel, A. and Lackner, J. R. Evaluation fo the relationship between motion
sickness symptomatology and heart rate, blood pressure, and body tempera-
ture. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 51, 211 - 214, 1980b.
Held, R. Plasticity in sensory motor systems. Scientific American, 213, 84-94,
1965.
Held, R.,and Hein, A. Adaptation to disarranged hand eye coordination contin-
gent upon re-afferent stimulation. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 8, 87-90,
1958.
Lackner, J. R. Vestibular selection criteria for space shuttle personnel: A
critical analysis of the problem of motion sfci ,ness. Report submitted to
Office of Life Sciences, L. B. Johnson Space Center, NASA, 1978.
Lackner, J. R., and Graybiel, A. Postural illusions experienced during Z-axis
recumbent rotation and their- dependence on somato - sensory stimulation of
the body surface. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 49, 484-488,
1978x.	 I
i
i
b9.
Lackner, J. R., and Graybiel, A. Some influences of touch and pressure cues on
human spatial orientation. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 49,
798-804, 1978b.
Lackner, J. R., and Graybiel, A. Some influences of vision on euscAptibiiity to
motion sickness. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 50, 1122-
1125, 1979a.
Lackner, J. R., and Graybiel, A. Parabolic flight: Loss of sense of orients-
tion. Science, 206, 1105-1108, 1979b.
Lackner, J. R., and Levine, M. S. Changes in apparent body orientation and
sensory localization induced by vibration of postural muscles: Vibratory
myesthetic illusion,,. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 50,
346-354, 1979.
La^ikner, J., and Graybiel, A. Visual and postural motion aftereffects following
parabolic flight. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 51, 230-233,
1980.
Levine, M. S., and J. R. Lackner. Some sensory and motor factors influencing
the control and appreciation of eye and limb po3ition. Eperimental Brain
Research, 36, 275-283 0 1979.
Mather, J. A., and Lackner, J. R. Visual tracking of active and passive move-
ments of the hand. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 32, 307-
315, 1980a.
Mather, J. A., and Lackner, J. R. Adaptation to visual dsplacement with active
and passive limb movements: Effect of movement frequency and predictability
of movement. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology!, 32, 317-323,r.	 r_
1980b.
Mather, J. A., and Lackner, J. R. Multiple sensory and motor cues enhance the
accuracy of pursuit eye movements. Aviation Space and Environmental
Medicine, 51, 856-859, 1980c.
b10.
v
R
Ouan, C. A heuristic Mathematical model of the %*w!ory conflict thoory of
notion sickness. Mon. Vehicle Laboratory Technical Rop2rt MIT, 1979.
j	 ,


Vestibular selection criteria development

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