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

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.