A “Natural” Independent Visual Background Reduced Simulator Sickness

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.