HCC: Small: Understanding Situational and Individual Factors in Adaptation to Cybersickness

虚拟现实（VR）在未来的工作、教育和娱乐中发挥核心作用的一个障碍是，许多VR用户都会经历网络病。晕机的症状与晕动病相似，通常包括恶心、出汗、头晕、头痛和眼睛疲劳。根据VR体验的细节，Cybersickness可以在暴露10分钟内影响超过一半的VR用户。如此高的晕机率将限制VR及其许多应用的可访问性，特别是对于最易感的人群。然而，人们可以通过反复体验VR来适应，随着时间的推移减少晕机症状。例如，一个容易晕机的人可以体验一个VR应用程序（例如，娱乐应用程序），在短时间内轻轻地将他们暴露在晕机中，以便他们以后可以在没有疾病的情况下体验VR应用程序（例如，工作培训应用程序）。但问题依然存在。需要多大程度的适应？人要病到什么程度才能适应？这如何因软件应用程序或个人而异？该项目利用多日适应研究来探讨理想情景是否合理以及存在哪些障碍。这项研究研究了人类对电脑病的适应，以开发技术，使适应成为减少电脑病的有用工具。一个目标是了解在一个VR应用程序中的晕机适应何时以及在多大程度上会导致不同应用程序中的晕机降低。这种跨应用程序的适应被称为泛化，它将使晕机适应成为一个更有用的工具。该研究将调查适应的泛化是否取决于用于在虚拟环境中移动的方法，例如真实的步行或使用操纵杆。研究的另一个目标是了解是否适应晕电需要用户最初经历大量的晕电，或者是否可以使用现有的技术来减少虚拟环境的强度，同时最大限度地减少用户的不适。最后，研究将检查是否所有人都能从适应中平等受益，或者人的特征是否会影响适应率，以及适应是否会在VR应用中推广。这些研究目标是建立我们对晕机适应的知识以及开发现实技术的核心，这些技术将帮助VR设计师最大限度地减少用户对晕机的不愉快体验，并增加VR技术的使用。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。

One barrier to virtual reality (VR) playing a central role in the future of work, education, and entertainment is the fact that many VR users experience cybersickness. Symptoms of cybersickness are similar to those of motion sickness, and often include nausea, sweating, dizziness, headache, and eyestrain. Cybersickness can affect more than half of VR users within just 10 minutes of exposure, depending on details of the VR experience. Such a high rate of cybersickness will limit the accessibility of VR and its many applications, especially for the most susceptible people. However, people can adapt through repeated experiences with VR to reduce cybersickness symptoms over time. For instance, a person who is susceptible to cybersickness could experience a VR application (for example, an entertainment application) that gently exposes them to cybersickness over a short period of time so that they can later experience VR applications (for example, a job training application) without sickness. But questions remain. How much adaptation is needed? How sick do people have to be before they adapt? How does this vary by software application or by person? This project uses multi-day adaptation studies to explore whether the ideal scenario is plausible and what roadblocks exist. This research studies human adaptation to cybersickness to develop techniques that will make adaptation a useful tool to reduce cybersickness. One goal is to learn when and to what extent cybersickness adaptation in one VR application will lead to lower cybersickness in a different application. This carryover of adaptation across applications is referred to as generalization, and it would make cybersickness adaptation a more useful tool. The research will investigate whether generalization of adaptation depends on the method used to move through the virtual environment, such as real walking or using a joystick. Another goal of the research is to learn whether adaptation to cybersickness requires the user to initially experience substantial cybersickness, or whether adaptation can occur while minimizing the user’s discomfort using existing techniques for reducing the intensity of virtual environments. Finally, the research will examine whether all individuals equally benefit from adaptation, or whether characteristics of the person affect the rate of adaptation and whether adaptation generalizes across VR applications. These research goals are central to building our knowledge about cybersickness adaptation as well as developing realistic techniques that will help VR designers minimize the unpleasant experience of cybersickness for users and increase access to VR technology.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.