Influence of bone-conducted vibration on simulator sickness in virtual reality, 2017

Use of virtual reality (VR) technology is often accompanied by a series of unwanted symptoms, including nausea and headache, which are characterised as ‘simulator sickness’. Sensory mismatch has been thought to lie at the heart of the problem and recent studies have shown reducing cue mismatch in VR can have a therapeutic effect. Specifically, electrical stimulation of vestibular afferent nerves (galvanic vestibular stimulation; GVS) can reduce simulator sickness in VR. However, GVS poses a risk to certain populations and can also result in negative symptoms in normal, healthy individuals. Here, we tested whether noisy vestibular stimulation through bone-vibration can also reduce symptoms of simulator sickness. We carried out two experiments in which participants performed a spatial navigation task in VR and completed the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire over a series of trials.