The Optokinetic Nystagmus as a Physiological Indicator of Cybersickness – A Vergence-Based Evaluation

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

The application of virtual reality (VR) is increasing steadily. However, cybersickness - a diffuse set of symptoms like discomfort and nausea - remains an accessibility problem for VR. The eye movement hypothesis stresses the role of the optokinetic nystagmus (OKN), a distinct eye movement pattern for gaze stabilizing in moving scenes, in the genesis of cybersickness symptoms. Thus, we postulate a time lag between OKN and cybersickness onset, as well as an explorative approach for using the OKN as a diagnostic criterion. For the study, 70 subjects were exposed to two VR environments in a randomized order. One of the VR environments aimed at achieving a naturalistic VR use case scenario while the other used an optokinetic drum in VR for inducing the OKN. Each participant rated cybersickness Pre/Post-VR on a symptom questionnaire and during VR on a single-item questionnaire every two min. To reduce the error probability in velocity-based eye event coding we applied a 3-dimensional vergence-based algorithm for the pre-processing of the eye-tracking data. The results show that cybersickness was successfully induced in both VR environments but with different main symptom facets. However, there was a negative correlation between the frequency of occurrence of OKN and upcoming reported cybersickness. None of the OKN parameters served as diagnostic predictors for cybersickness. We discuss methodological limitations regarding the applicability of physiological indicators for predicting cybersickness and the advantages of openness.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHCI International 2024 Posters - 26th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2024, Proceedings
EditorsConstantine Stephanidis, Margherita Antona, Stavroula Ntoa, Gavriel Salvendy
PublisherSpringer, Cham
Pages58–66
Number of pages9
Volume3
ISBN (electronic)978-3-031-61950-2
ISBN (print)978-3-031-61949-6
Publication statusPublished - 6 Jun 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesCommunications in Computer and Information Science
Volume2116
ISSN1865-0929

External IDs

Scopus 85197204459

Keywords

Keywords

  • Cybersickness, Eye-Tracking, Open Source, Optokinetic Nystagmus, Pupil Labs, Vergence, Virtual Reality