ABSTRACT
Navigation in a 3D immersive virtual environment is known to be prone to visually induced motion sickness (VIMS). Several psychophysiological and behavioral methods have been used to measure the level of sickness of a user, among which is postural instability. This study investigates all the features that can be extracted from the body postural sway: area of the projection of the center of gravity (mainly considered in past studies) and its shape and the frequency components of the signal’s spectrum, in order to estimate and predict the occurrence of sickness in a typical virtual reality (VR) application.
After modeling and simulation of the body postural sway, an experiment on 17 subjects identified a relation between the level of sickness and the variation both in the time and frequency domains of the body sway signal. The results support and go further into detail of findings of past studies using postural instability as an efficient indicator of sickness, giving insight to better monitor VIMS in a VR application.
Funding
This research was supported by the French Minister of Economy, Finances and Industry, under contract FUI Callisto.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Jean-Rémy Chardonnet
Jean-Rémy Chardonnet received his Ph.D. degree in robotics from the Université de Montpellier II, France, in 2009. He was then with INRIA Grenoble, France. He is currently Assistant Professor at Arts et Métiers and CNRS Le2i Institut Image, Chalon-sur-Saône, France. His research interests include virtual reality and multimodal interaction.
Mohammad Ali Mirzaei received his Ph.D. degree in virtual reality from Arts et Métiers, France in 2014. His research focuses on signal/image processing and real-time systems.
Mohammad Ali Mirzaei
Mohammad Ali Mirzaei received his Ph.D. degree in virtual reality from Arts et Métiers, France in 2014. His research focuses on signal/image processing and real-time systems.
Frédéric Mérienne
Frédéric Mérienne is Full Professor at Arts et Métiers ParisTech and head of the research team in Virtual Immersion of the Le2i laboratory (Bourgogne Franche-Comté University, Arts et Métiers, CNRS). His research topics concern multisensory immersive techniques for interacting with a digital mock-up.