CHS: Small: Towards Accommodating Gender Differences in Virtual Reality Sickness

虚拟现实（VR）在改变我们与计算机交互的方式方面具有重要的前景，但目前VR的采用受到VR病（也称为Cybersickness）的阻碍，这是VR应用中一些头戴式显示器（HMD）用户所经历的一种情况。一个看似合理的理论表明，VR疾病的发生是由于身体在环境中运动的感觉和运动信息相互冲突的结果。例如，VR用户通常只会体验到视觉运动，而没有相应的物理运动，因此运动的视觉和物理提示是冲突的。在日常生活中，神经系统根据一些通常彼此一致的感觉和运动信号来估计自我运动。VR引起的这些信号之间的不一致可能导致疾病，症状包括嗜睡，定向障碍，恶心甚至呕吐。虽然高达67%的成年人经历了轻度至重度的VR疾病症状，但有大量证据表明，女性比男性更有可能经历VR疾病，这导致女性对VR技术的采用率较低。这种对VR疾病易感性的性别差异提供了一个独特的机会，可以更好地了解VR疾病的根本原因。男性和女性之间感觉处理的生理差异通常是微妙的，但如果这些差异可以被证明与VR疾病的发病率相关，它将提高我们对感觉过程和VR疾病之间关系的理解。更好地了解导致VR疾病的原因有可能使VR更容易获得，并消除大众市场消费者采用VR的最重要障碍之一。如果成功，这将导致女性在计算领域更好地采用VR系统和应用程序。此外，随着VR进入企业培训和规划领域，如果女性因疾病问题而无法使用VR，她们可能会处于不利地位，因此该项目的成功可能也会对现代劳动力中的女性产生积极影响。本项目通过扩展学科边界，整合认知神经科学领域的见解，从事尖端人机交互研究。先前的研究已经确定了视觉感知，多感觉整合和空间定向的性别差异。这些差异可能与VR疾病的性别差异有关，但我们目前对VR疾病的潜在机制的理解有限。因此，该项目旨在调查感觉和认知处理的性别差异是否与女性中VR疾病的发病率较高和VR采用率较低有关。对性别差异的探索导致了医学上的科学见解和突破，因此同样有很大的潜力来促进我们对VR疾病的理解。经验性用户研究将具体调查：（1）眼球运动，（2）视觉灵敏度，（3）多感官整合，以及这些与性别和VR疾病易感性的关系。该项目旨在通过以下方式为计算机科学和神经科学做出贡献：（1）开发VR疾病的眼动跟踪指标，（2）开发减少VR疾病的运动界面;（3）深入了解视觉和前庭感觉处理及其与VR疾病的关系。最终目标是通过对VR疾病及其原因的全面了解来提高VR的可访问性。该项目由Cyber-Human Systems和刺激竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Virtual reality (VR) holds significant promise to transform the way we interact with computers, but adoption of VR is currently hindered by VR sickness (also referred as Cybersickness), a condition experienced by some users of head mounted displays (HMDs) in VR applications. A plausible theory suggests that VR sickness occurs as a result of conflicting sensory and motor information about the body's movement through the environment. For example, VR users will often experience visual movement only, with no corresponding physical movement, such that visual and physical cues to movement are conflicting. In daily life, the nervous system estimates self-motion based on a number of sensory and motor signals that typically agree with one another. VR-induced disagreement between these signals can lead to sickness, with symptoms including drowsiness, disorientation, nausea and even vomiting. While up to 67% of adults experience mild to severe symptoms of VR sickness, there is substantial evidence that women are more likely to experience it than men, which has led to a low adoption rate of VR technology among women. This gender difference in susceptibility to VR sickness offers a unique opportunity to develop a better understanding of the underlying causes of VR sickness more generally. Physiological differences in sensory processing between men and women are often subtle, but if these differences can be shown to correlate with incidence of VR sickness, it will improve our understanding of the relationship between sensory processes and VR sickness. Better understanding of what causes VR sickness has the potential to make VR more accessible and remove one of the most significant barriers to mass market consumer adoption of VR. If successful, this will lead to better adoption of VR systems and applications by women in computing. Also, with VR entering into enterprise space for training and planning, women may be at a disadvantage if they cannot use VR because of the sickness issue, so this project's success may have a positive impact on women in the modern workforce too.This project engages in cutting-edge human-computer interaction research by expanding disciplinary boundaries and integrating insights from the field of cognitive neuroscience. Prior studies have identified gender differences in visual perception, multisensory integration, and spatial orientation. These differences could be linked to gender differences in VR sickness, but our current understanding of the underlying mechanisms of VR sickness is limited. Hence, the project seeks to investigate whether gender differences in sensory and cognitive processing are linked to a higher incidence of VR sickness and low adoption rate of VR among women. Exploration of gender differences has led to scientific insights and breakthroughs in medicine, so there is significant potential to similarly advance our understanding of VR sickness. Empirical user studies will specifically investigate: (1) eye movements, (2) visual sensitivity, and (3) multisensory integration, and how these are related to both gender and susceptibility to VR sickness. This project aims to make contributions to both computer science and neuroscience through: (1) development of eye tracking metrics for VR sickness, (2) development of locomotion interfaces that minimize VR sickness; and (3) an advanced understanding of visual and vestibular sensory processing and their relation to VR sickness. The end goal is to improve VR accessibility through development of a holistic understanding of VR sickness and its causes.This project is jointly funded by Cyber-Human Systems and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.