A “Natural” Independent Visual Background Reduced Simulator Sickness

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Abstract
Several studies indicated that an independent visual background (IVB) reduced simulator sickness (SS) and balance disturbance associated with exposure to virtual environments (VEs) and motion simulators. A recent study showed that an IVB comprised of an earth-fixed grid was less effective in a complex driving simulator than in a simple VE. Subjects' post-experiment reports indicated that the VE motion “induced” motion of the earth-fixed grid IVB. This led to the suggestion that an IVB comprised of clouds would be less subject to induced motion and therefore would alleviate nausea more effectively than a grid IVB. Clouds are “natural” and are usually perceived as relatively stable, whereas a gird has no inherent stability. Twelve subjects were exposed to complex motion through a simulated environment in a driving simulator under 3 IVB conditions: grid, less clouds, and many clouds. They reported less nausea when the many-cloud IVB was used relative to the grid IVB condition.