Sick in the Car, Sick in VR? Understanding How Real-World Susceptibility to Dizziness, Nausea, and Eye Strain Influences VR Motion Sickness

A substantial number of Virtual Reality (VR) users (studies report 30-80%) suffer from cyber sickness, a negative experience caused by a sensory mismatch of real and virtual stimuli. Prior research proposed different mitigation strategies. Yet, it remains unclear how effectively they work, considering users' real-world susceptibility to motion sickness. We present a lab experiment, in which we assessed 146 users' real-world susceptibility to nausea, dizziness, and eye strain before exposing them to a roller coaster ride with low or high visual resolution. We found that nausea is significantly lower for higher resolution but real-world motion susceptibility has a much stronger effect on dizziness, nausea, and eye strain. Our work points towards a need for research investigating the effectiveness of approaches to mitigate motion sickness so as not to include them from VR use and access to the metaverse.