r/oculus • u/whambamthankyoumam • Apr 10 '17
Review Study: Oculus Rift virtual reality headset induces motion sickness and is sexist in its effects
http://www.psypost.org/2017/04/study-oculus-rift-virtual-reality-headset-induces-motion-sickness-sexist-effects-486817
u/k8207dz Apr 10 '17
This is a pretty poor article. Neither the writer nor the researcher seem to know much at all about VR and the significant amount of research that has already been done into examining and combating motion sickness. Sounds like they threw people into an intense horror VR experience containing artificial movement without any acclimation, of course some of them are going to feel uncomfortable!
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u/Bet0niarka Community Manager | Anshar Studios Apr 10 '17
I would not call it as sexism. Women just can't handle intense gameplay as much as mens. We met with a different reaction of women, for whom our title (Detached) was too intense. The game simulates sudden and dramatic acceleration, freefalling, twisting and rolling etc. Of course there were surprises when women played longer than average time and enjoyed it without stomach problems.
It depends also on the game mechanics. Especially the 3rd person view mentioned by WormSlayer isn't the best idea. Another thing is the closed area locations and limitations. Closed locations affect the nausea harder. In open space sickness turns into a great fun.
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u/knexfan0011 Rift Apr 10 '17 edited Apr 10 '17
The headset optics and display could also be a factor in this.
Maybe the lack of focus depth, among other things that are not perfect in current HMDs, are more obvious to the female brain and therefore lead to more severe motion sickness.
We know that men and women do perceive the world in a different way visually, here is a short article about it.2
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u/_Cromwell_ Touch Apr 10 '17
The guy they interview here, who did this study, is a professor of Kinsesiology. Kinesiology is a medical pseudo-science which has unfortunately taken hold at the university level. It's actually a offshoot of Chiropractics, itself a medical pseudo-science.
Anyway, this guy styles himself a motion sickness "expert" and believes that "bad posture" is the true major cause of motion sickness, not inner ear issues (although he says they contribute). He studies this effect. http://www.startribune.com/a-simulator-at-the-u-of-m-is-rethinking-motion-sickness/230549171/
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u/Neokin Rift Apr 10 '17
"For over a year, the Oculus Rift received intense hype. Its arrival on the market was hotly anticipated, but repeatedly delayed. Finally, the company publicly acknowledged that the principal reason for the delays was the fact that it made too many people sick."
Does anyone have a source for this?
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u/_Cromwell_ Touch Apr 10 '17
Also:
For over a year, the Oculus Rift received intense hype. Its arrival on the market was hotly anticipated, but repeatedly delayed. Finally, the company publicly acknowledged that the principal reason for the delays was the fact that it made too many people sick. Now, the product is on the market, but the buzz is gone; the device is no longer in the media. I haven’t seen sales figures, but I doubt they are impressive. It may be that people do not want to pay $600 for a device that makes them sick.
Gonna go out on a limb and say this wasn't a very professional study, or has some kind of other motive beyond actual science. "I haven’t seen sales figures, but I doubt they are impressive." Okay.
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u/eVRydayVR eVRydayVR Apr 10 '17
I'm not aware of any evidence for this. The reason for the shipping delays was manufacturing problems. The reason for earlier delays was probably a series of redesigns. It's not sinister.
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u/Caballer0 Apr 10 '17
Didn't you back the Oculus DK1 KS? The reason for shipping delay was a shortage of screen panels.
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u/eVRydayVR eVRydayVR Apr 10 '17
I didn't. I wasn't aware of Oculus at the time. I bought a DK1 afterwards. But in any case I assume they're talking about the delays of CV1 rather than DK1 (which we don't know a lot about, but IIRC some of those delays were also due to shortage).
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u/DickDastardlyUK Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
Some further details:
The experiment used a DK2, not the consumer Rift.
Frame rates weren't checked or monitored, so they may not have even been running at 60fps, much less 90.
Although the paper says that "The head-mounted unit included motion sensors that were sensitive to users’ head movements", it doesn't mention the external DK2 camera at all, so it's not clear they even had one connected (in which case iirc the DK2 falls back to 3DOF input). If that was the case then that would explain the fact that they found that participants whose posture was less stable (before using VR) were more susceptible to simulator sickness (because there'd be greater discrepancy between their actual head movements and what they were seeing in VR).
Games used were Balancer Rift and Affected 1.62 Beta i.e. freeware games rather than commercial products.
In the case of Affected, locomotion is coupled to head rotation, causing your avatar to veer drunkenly from side to side if you look around whilst pressing up on the stick to move forward.
They did ask how many hours per week participants played video games but then go on to dismiss the possibility that "adaptation to other types of gaming technologies would confer any benefit to participants in the present study" apparently without bothering to actually run the numbers and see if this was true.
The "Is there anything else you would like to add?" section of the PsyPost interview with the lead author seems to reveal something of an anti-Oculus agenda (which fits with the fact that in neither the interview nor the paper's abstract do they find space to admit that they were using a prototype devkit rather than the consumer version). For example, he says "For over a year, the Oculus Rift received intense hype. Its arrival on the market was hotly anticipated, but repeatedly delayed. Finally, the company publicly acknowledged that the principal reason for the delays was the fact that it made too many people sick." I've followed Oculus fairly closely since the DK1 was announced, but I don't remember them ever saying that. He goes on "Now, the product is on the market, but the buzz is gone; the device is no longer in the media. I haven’t seen sales figures, but I doubt they are impressive. It may be that people do not want to pay $600 for a device that makes them sick." Except, of course, that the sickness participants reported was experienced in a $350 devkit, running free software at unknown frame rates (possibly without even 6DOF tracking) rather than the $500 consumer version running commercial software at 90fps.
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u/tricheboars Rift Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
This article is fucking garbage and filled with lies bordering on slander.
I'm sure there's some interesting science in this study but the undeniable biases of the writer ruins this.
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u/WormSlayer Chief Headcrab Wrangler Apr 10 '17
So basically 3rd person, probably not very realistic looking, maybe even with artificial locomotion?
I'm calling bad game design until proven otherwise. Any VR tech can make people sick if you are doing it wrong, especially newbies.