Duration and Exposure to Virtual Environments: Sickness Curves During and Across Sessions

TLDR

Simulator sickness increases with longer exposure and decreases with repeated sessions, yet systematic research is limited and more work is needed to identify optimal exposure length and intersession intervals. The study aimed to determine how exposure duration and repeated exposure affect motion sickness, and to assess whether the relationship holds across different simulator environments. The authors conducted a systematic review of available studies and performed additional analyses to model the linear relationship between exposure duration, repetition, and sickness outcomes. They found that longer exposures raise sickness symptoms while repeated exposures lower them, with a significant linear relationship that is consistent across diverse systems and large subject pools.

Abstract

Although simulator sickness is known to increase with protracted exposure and to diminish with repeated sessions, limited systematic research has been performed in these areas. This study reviewed the few studies with sufficient information available to determine the effect that exposure duration and repeated exposure have on motion sickness. This evaluation confirmed that longer exposures produce more symptoms and that total sickness subsides over repeated exposures. Additional evaluation was performed to investigate the precise form of this relationship and to determine whether the same form was generalizable across varied simulator environments. The results indicated that exposure duration and repeated exposures are significantly linearly related to sickness outcomes (duration being positively related and repetition negatively related to total sickness). This was true over diverse systems and large subject pools. This result verified the generalizability of the relationships among sickness, exposure duration, and repeated exposures. Additional research is indicated to determine the optimal length of a single exposure and the optimal intersession interval to facilitate adaptation.