Head Tilt and its effects on Cybersickness Incidence In Head Mounted Displays

Abstract

Cybersickness (motion sickness in virtual environments) has been an impediment to the widespread adoption of head-mounted display (HMD) technologies. One approach to mitigate cybersickness in HMDs has been the use of redirected tilting, that is, eliciting head tilt towards the direction of rotation, especially when turning a corner (Nie & Suma Rosenberg, 2021). This approach relies on the postural-instability theory of motion sickness (Riccio & Stoffregen, 1991). However, there is a lack of research examining actual head tilt in virtual environments, and whether actual tilt bears any relation to cybersickness. The aim of my project is to examine this relationship so as to inform the design of future cybersickness mitigation techniques. I aim to address this issue in the context of other factors that have documented relevance to cybersickness, including the existence of postural precursors of cybersickness (e.g., Munafo et al., 2017), and sex differences in cybersickness susceptibility (e.g., Koslucher et al., 2015; Munafo et al.). Previous studies have not asked whether postural precursors of motion sickness might exist in actively controlled head tilt.