“Published estimates suggest that
10-60% of the population experience some adverse effects from computer display of motion. This has serious implications for the ultimate applicability of VR.”IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
The Roller Coaster of Virtual Reality
By Laura Golins
Picture courtesy of VRealities
There was a time when I could enjoy the wild and fast rides at the amusement park. Riding the Zipper, Scrambler and roller coaster were all in a day's play. I rode the Matterhorn at Disneyland three times in a row without a faltering or wavering step afterwards. I was even able to keep down the junk food I had eaten. Therefore, when Virtual Reality was introduced to the public in the early 1990s, I was pretty sure I was up for the challenge. After all, Star Trek: The Next Generation and its holodeck had made the whole "virtual" thing seem pretty harmless and exciting. I never did get to "experience" Virtual Reality though and there is a very good reason for it.
Four years ago, I was given the video game Quake. It was exciting. I was going to experience one of the most popular and highly touted video games of the time. And experienced it, I did! I ended up with a horrific headache. I felt nauseous and I wanted to wretch. I had to sit still for at least a few hours waiting for the queasiness to subside. My friends, who could play the game for hours on end and never experience these same side effects, ostracized me for being a wimp. Refusing to live with that stigma for the rest of my life, I forced myself to continue playing the game. I was determined to overcome these seemingly abnormal reactions. I resorted to creating a variety of different atmospheric changes, hoping that would help. Nothing worked. I was still sick. The vivid memories of those horrific sensations told me there was no way I was going to strap on a head-mounted display (HMD) and "get virtual". I chickened out and felt ashamed. What I did not know was I was suffering from a new malady of the 1990s: Cybersickness, a variant form of motion sickness. It turns out I was not alone, nor was this a new concept.
In the 1950s, during the early days of flight simulators, pilot trainees experienced similar visually induced afflictions. The symptoms induced by both the flight simulators and the fixed-platform systems helped coin a new phrase, "simulator sickness" to describe the pilots side effects. In the 1960s, during the Space Program in both the United States and Soviet Union, "space sickness" was observed among the participating astronauts. Space sickness brought on from training centrifuges and flight simulators, evoked motion sickness and the same simulator sickness that had afflicted the pilots a few years earlier. In the 1970s, Ivan Sutherland created the "Ultimate Display" and the stage was set for VR. By the mid 1990s, VR companies were seeing a surge in popularity. It seemed as though the VR world would take over cyberspace. However, it was soon realized that VR systems and to a lesser extent, video games, were having an adverse effect on a sizeable portion of the population. People were suffering from headaches, nausea, disorientation, eyestrain, flashbacks and disrupted motor control. These 1990s afflictions gave rise to the word, "Cybersickness".
Cybersickness results from a sensory conflict between what you are seeing and what you think you are seeing. There is a "time lag between the usersŐ movements and the response of the computer images" (Strauss) which confuses the brain and upsets the balance in the inner ear. These days, cybersickness has almost become synonymous with Virtual Reality, resulting in major setbacks to the VR industry who are targeting the lucrative video-game market. A bigger concern might be future lawsuits stemming from accidents, eye injuries or flashbacks that could impede future growth of the VR industry.
Some people will learn and others already know how to trick the brain into seeing 3D visuals. For the rest of us, it is likely we will continue experiencing some symptoms of cybersickness whenever we are playing video games or are in a virtual environment. Ironically, studies have shown that kids are more likely to suffer from cybersickness, the very market VR companies are targeting. However, there is hope for people like me. It seems that as you get older, the symptoms diminish dramatically. Which means, by the time I am 50, I will be able to enjoy the virtual environment without having to run to the nearest medicine cabinet for my Gravol pills, Dramamine or acupressure wrists bands.
Laura Golins is a multimedia student at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. Her interests include art, music, literature, web page design, pop culture and animals.
Source listMcClure, Doug. "Virtual Reality: Not Just Fun and Games Anymore". http://disc.cba.uh.edu/~rhirsch/fall96/doug.htm
Potel, Mike. "Motion Sick in Cyberspace". IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. January/February 1998, v. 18, n1, p16-21.
Strauss, Stephen. "Cybersickness: The Side Effects of Virtual Reality". Technology Review. July 1995, v. 98, n5, p14(3).
Wantland, Cyril, Subhas Gupta and Scott Klein. "Safety Considerations for Current and Future VR Applications". http://www.i-med.com/mi/safety.html http://www.vrealities.com/dyno.html
FACER E-Zine V2#1
Foundations, Projections and Issues