Washington: Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have developed a method of combating motion sickness-like symptoms experienced by some people when they use popular virtual reality headsets. Their approach dynamically, yet subtly, changes the user’s field of view (FOV) in response to visually perceived motion, as the user virtually traverses an environment while remaining physically stationary.
The method can be applied to consumer head-worn virtual reality (VR) displays, such as the Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard. The study showed that by strategically and automatically manipulating FOV, the degree of VR sickness experienced by participants can be significantly reduced.
The researchers accomplished this without decreasing the participants’ sense of presence in the virtual environment, and without the majority of the participants even being aware of the intervention. “2016 is the year of VR and it’s estimated that over 200 million VR headsets will be sold by 2020,” said Steven K Feiner, who directs the Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Lab at the Columbia University.
“But VR sickness, which has symptoms similar to motion sickness, poses a barrier for many users of this immersive technology,” said Feiner. “People who experience VR sickness will often stop using their headsets, as they feel nauseated and uncomfortable,” he said.
The researchers developed an approach that focused on the VR user’s FOV, changing it in a way that many participants found imperceptible.
“I was aware of work on change blindness – a concept in perceptual psychology that explains why people sometimes do not notice what would seem to be an obvious change in a scene,” said Ajoy Fernandes, from Columbia University. “So I wondered if this could be applied to VR: could we change a participant’s FOV without them noticing?” he said.
When the visual and vestibular cues conflict, users can feel quite uncomfortable, even nauseated. In many cases, decreasing the field of view can decrease these symptoms. However, this can also decrease the user’s sense of presence in the virtual environment, making the experience less compelling.
Researchers focused on subtly decreasing FOV in situations when a larger FOV would be likely to cause VR sickness. They developed software that functions as a pair of “dynamic FOV restrictors” and can partially obscure each eye’s view with a virtual soft-edged cutout.
They then determined how much the user’s field of view should be reduced, and the speed with which it should be reduced and then restored, and tested the system.
