Potential factors contributing to observed sex differences in virtual-reality-induced sickness

Bannigan, Grainne M., de Sousa, Alexandra A., Scheller, Meike, Finnegan, Daniel J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1169-2842 and Proulx, Michael J. 2024. Potential factors contributing to observed sex differences in virtual-reality-induced sickness. Experimental Brain Research 242 , pp. 463-475. 10.1007/s00221-023-06760-0

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Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) technology has been widely adopted for several professional and recreational applications. Despite rapid innovation in hardware and software, one of the long prevailing issues for end users of VR is the experience of VR sickness. Females experience stronger VR sickness compared to males, and previous research has linked susceptibility to VR sickness to the menstrual cycle (Munafo, Diedrick, & Stoffregen, 2017). Here we investigated the female versus male experience in VR sickness while playing an immersive VR game, comparing days of the menstrual cycle when hormones peak: day 15 (ovulation - peak oestrogen) and day 22 (mid-luteal phase - peak progesterone). We found that immersion duration was greater in the second session than the first, and discomfort was lessened, suggesting a powerful adaptation with repeated exposure. Due to the oestrogen levels changing along with the exposure, there was no clear independent impact of that; note, though, that there was a significant difference between self-report and physiological measures implying that GSR is potentially an unreliable measure of motion sickness. Although prior work found a delay over two days between session would not allow adaptation and habituation to reduce VR sickness susceptibility, we found that a week delay has potential success.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Computer Science & Informatics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Computer software
Uncontrolled Keywords:	virtual reality, motion sickness, menstrual cycle, psychophysiology
Publisher:	Springer
ISSN:	0014-4819
Funders:	EPSRC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 June 2023
Date of Acceptance:	30 November 2023
Last Modified:	05 Feb 2024 15:31
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/164470

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