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Don’t make me sick: investigating the incidence of cybersickness in commercial virtual reality headsets

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Abstract

The resurgence of interest in the use of virtual reality (VR) technology for research and entertainment purposes has led to an increase in concerns about human factor issues inherent in VR technology. One issue that has received a great deal of attention from researchers and end users is cybersickness, which refers to a constellation of unpleasant physiological symptoms, such as nausea and dizziness, experienced as result of exposure to a virtual environment. While cybersickness is not a new issue, it is expected to become even more prevalent with the recent proliferation of commercially available VR headsets, such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, underscoring the importance of investigating the prevalence of cybersickness while using these headsets. Accordingly, in two experiments, the current study examined whether cybersickness was a persistent issue in the state-of-the-art commercial-grade VR headsets and compared the incidence and severity of cybersickness across Oculus Rift CV1, HTC Vive and a desktop display. Consistent with prior work into head-mounted displays and cybersickness, results indicated that participants in the Oculus Rift CV1 and HTC Vive conditions experienced more severe cybersickness symptoms, when compared to those in the desktop display condition. Oculus Rift CV1 and HTC Vive did not significantly differ from each other and were comparable in the severity of cybersickness symptoms they induce. The current study demonstrated that cybersickness was still a prevalent human factor issue in such modern VR headsets as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, highlighting the importance of devising strategies to mitigate cybersickness in VEs.

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Notes

  1. As per one of the reviewer’s request, the data for VR conditions from Experiments 1 and 2 were combined to increase the statistical power of the pairwise comparison between the Oculus Rift CV1 and HTC Vive conditions with respect to the overall cybersickness levels invoked by these two HMDs. Results of the Mann–Whitney U test revealed no statistically significant differences in cybersickness levels between the Oculus Rift CV1 (n = 27, M = 65.52, SE = 8.78) and HTC Vive (n = 27, M = 67.74, SE = 10.66) conditions, U = 360, p = .95, indicating that the difference in cybersickness levels between the two HMD conditions remained nonsignificant when the data from Experiment 1 and 2 were combined.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank VR First for providing the VR equipment used in the study. The author would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comprehensive reviews.

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  1. Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Caglar Yildirim

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  1. Caglar Yildirim
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Correspondence to Caglar Yildirim.

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Yildirim, C. Don’t make me sick: investigating the incidence of cybersickness in commercial virtual reality headsets. Virtual Reality 24, 231–239 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-019-00401-0

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