Combating VR sickness through subtle dynamic field-of-view modification

Virtual Reality (VR) sickness can cause intense discomfort, shorten the duration of a VR experience, and create an aversion to further use of VR. High-quality tracking systems can minimize the mismatch between a user's visual perception of the virtual environment (VE) and the response of their vestibular system, diminishing VR sickness for moving users. However, this does not help users who do not or cannot move physically the way they move virtually, because of preference or physical limitations such as a disability. It has been noted that decreasing field of view (FOV) tends to decrease VR sickness, though at the expense of sense of presence. To address this tradeoff, we explore the effect of dynamically, yet subtly, changing a physically stationary person's FOV in response to visually perceived motion as they virtually traverse a VE. We report the results of a two-session, multi-day study with 30 participants. Each participant was seated in a stationary chair, wearing a stereoscopic head-worn display, and used control and FOV-modifying conditions in the same VE. Our data suggests that by strategically and automatically manipulating FOV during a VR session, we can reduce the degree of VR sickness perceived by participants and help them adapt to VR, without decreasing their subjective level of presence, and minimizing their awareness of the intervention.