2/4/2025 | 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM | Grand Peninsula D

Sensory mechanisms underlying cybersickness

Author(s)

Douglas Gill | FlightSafety International

Abstract

Conventional cybersickness analyses largely take an outside-in approach, i.e. analyzing use cases and symptoms or reductively analyzing hypothesized causal elements. This work takes an inside-out perspective, wherein the natural operation of senses which interface to XR devices is examined and is then compared to the demands placed upon them by those devices. The analysis identifies 5 interacting clusters of sensory mismatch and/or limitation inherent to today’s devices. Combined, these 5 clusters constitute a novel holistic synthesis of mechanisms underlying the phenomena of cybersickness. The mechanistic understanding provides the basis for a substantial, well informed research agenda.