Driving simulators can provide driving training while maintaining passenger safety and evaluate users' behavior on machines in development. However, nausea symptoms related to simulator sickness often occur, which has hampered advances in their utilization. The research group of Graduate Student Chihiro Kasegawa, Graduate Students Yumi Yamawaki and Masami Hayashi (at the time of the study), and Professor Makoto Miyazaki of the Faculty of Informatics at Shizuoka University, in collaboration with Masayuki Miki of the Fundamental Technology Research Division, Yamaha Motor, and Associate Professor Yoshihiro Itaguchi of Keio University have found that a 1-hour interval after the first simulator session attenuated sickness in the second session. The work was published in Scientific Reports.
Driving simulator sickness is attenuated when the user becomes accustomed (adapted) to the simulator after repeated experiences. Previous research reports have left at least a day between one session and the next, but long intervals impede effective utilization. In response, the research group conducted a VR motorcycling simulator experiment to reduce sickness in a shorter time. Participants in the experiment (60 people) experienced a visual stimulus simulating a motorcycle driving scene along a winding road through a head-mounted display while seated on a scooter chassis in the laboratory. Each participant experienced two 6-minute simulator sessions with an interval in between.
The participants were divided into three groups with different lengths of interval between the first and second simulator sessions: a 6-minute interval (20 participants), an interval until the participant recovered from sickness (20 participants), and a 1-hour interval (20 participants). Participants in all three groups made a report after a 6-minute interval following the second session. They reported a subjective level of sickness (Fast Motion Sickness, or FMS) on a 20-point scale during simulator sessions and intervals.
The experiment results showed that the level of sickness reported during the second session was lower than that reported during the first session in the group taking a 1-hour interval. In other words, simulator sickness was attenuated by adaptation as a result of having the 1-hour interval. In contrast, the level of sickness in the 6-minute interval group was not reduced but increased. This was thought to be attributable to a cumulation of the carry-over sickness symptoms into the second session because the 6-minute interval was insufficient to fully recover from sickness (FMS > 0). In the group taking an interval until the recovery from sickness, the level of sickness did not increase, but neither did it decrease.
These results indicate that attenuation of simulator sickness requires a certain resting time even after subjective recovery. This suggests that effective adaptation to reduce sickness requires a certain waiting period during which the memory of the VR simulator experience is consolidated in the brain.
In this study, the research group demonstrated that an interval for a relatively short period, such as one hour, effectively attenuated VR simulator sickness in a re-exposure. Demonstrating attenuation of visually induced motion sickness through adaptation in an interval shorter than 1 day is a discovery with no precedent worldwide.
The results are expected to provide basic knowledge for designing training programs to prevent or alleviate simulator sickness within one day. Once established, the method is expected to find application not only to simulator sickness but also to motion sickness, such as seasickness and carsickness.
Journal Information
Publication: Scientific Reports
Title: Effects of within-day intervals on adaptation to visually induced motion sickness in a virtual-reality motorcycling simulator
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-71526-9
This article has been translated by JST with permission from The Science News Ltd. (https://sci-news.co.jp/). Unauthorized reproduction of the article and photographs is prohibited.