Characteristics of habituation to motion in a virtual environment

Immersion in a virtual environment is known to produce symptoms similar to those of motion sickness. With repeated immersions, these symptoms are generally reduced in prevalence and severity. We aimed to quantify this habituation by immersing 70 people on ten occasions each. Ten participants were exposed every day, ten every 2 days, and so on up to every 7 days. The participants played a PC racing game, viewed through a head mounted display, for 20 min. They rated various motion sickness symptoms both before and after exposure, and rated their level of malaise at 1-min intervals during immersion. After completion of the ten trials, all sets of participants reported a marked reduction in the prevalence and severity of the symptoms. The habituation which occurred was of a similar nature in all of the participant groups regardless of exposure interval, indicating that the number of exposures is a more important factor than the time interval between them.