Findings suggest that adding an image of a nose to your VR simulations can reduce simulator sickness. Image courtesy of David Whittinghill/Purdue University image.
However, with the increased use of simulation caves, CAE VR software and the Oculus rift, virtual reality has made a significant resurgence in recent years. Solidifying this resurgence into the world of CAE was Real2015, a reality computing conference focused on the use of the technology by designers, engineers and even artists.
Unfortunately, there is a big sticking point in the VR industry: Some people get so sick from simulations that the mere mention of Virtual Reality makes their stomachs turn. To avoid this sticky mess, researchers at Purdue suggest that users program a virtual nose, dubbed "nasum virtualis,” into the center of the visual field.
"Simulator sickness is very common," said David Whittinghill, Assistant Professor at Purdue. "The problem is your perceptual system does not like it when the motion of your body and your visual system are out of synch. So if you see motion in your field of view you expect to be moving, and if you have motion in your eyes (oculomotor system) without motion in your vestibular system (the ear’s omatosensory system) you get sick."
Whittinghill’s team is researching how simulator sickness is introduced when playing virtual reality games. He has noted that, anecdotally, people react better when there is a fixed visual element in a game like a cockpit or dash. For games that do not have such a physical stationary object, undergrad Bradley Ziegler suggested designers include a nose.
"It was a stroke of genius," announced Whittinghill. "You are constantly seeing your own nose. You tune it out, but it's still there, perhaps giving you a frame of reference to help ground you."
When they added the nose to popular games the results showed that simulator sickness was reduced. Additionally, while the findings were aimed at videogames it should translate well to CAE simulations used for training, facility optimization, production line optimization and more.
The research team tested forty-one individuals using multiple virtual reality applications while wearing a headset. These tests varied in motion intensity from walking around a Tuscany villa to riding virtual roller coasters. Some users played with the virtual nose (nasum virtualis) and others didn’t. None of the users were told about the virtual nose.
The subjects were also connected to an electro dermal activity (EDA) sensor. This device used skin conductivity to determine the sweating and excitement associated with simulator sickness. Measurements determined that there was a difference when the nose was in view.
"Surprisingly, subjects did not notice the nasum virtualis while they were playing the games, and they were incredulous when its presence was revealed to them later in debriefings," Whittinghill said.
He added, "The roller coaster demo is short, but it's very intense at times, spinning upside down, jumping across chasms, plunging fully vertical, so people can't do it very long under the best of circumstances … We had a reliable increase of 2 seconds, and it was a very clear trend. For the Tuscany demo it takes more time, but eventually you start getting queasy, and 94 seconds is a huge improvement."
Currently, researchers are baffled as to why the virtual nose reduces simulator sickness, "Our suspicion is that you have this stable object that your body is accustomed to tuning out, but it's still there and your sensory system knows it," Whittinghill said.
To take their study further the team is planning to simulate simulator sickness. "Our long-term goal is to create a fully predictive model of simulator sickness that will allow us to predict, given a specific set of perceptual and individual inputs, what level of simulator sickness one can expect," Whittinghill explained.
So are you going to add a nasum virtualis to your next CAE simulation? Or does this research smell fishy? Comment below.
Source Purdue.