If you haven’t used one of the newer virtual reality headsets before, and you’re tired of reading everyone’s glowing reports on them, here’s something else to consider: they also make some folks sick.
Whether it’s the field of view or just the act that VR is simulating, certain people (obviously not everyone) find riding on a fake roller-coaster or flying a fake starfighter a bit nauseous, which is something that researchers working on VR have been struggling to overcome.
A team at Purdue University think they have found a solution, although it’s not one that’s going to please developers (or artists); seems inserting a digital nose in front of the player’s helps cure most people’s VR sickness.
It works by “grounding” the player’s senses; much of the sickness player’s experience is the result of their eyes experiencing a different sensation to the rest of the body, which throws everything off. If you can see a nose in the game, though, it gives your brain something to calibrate alongside.
“Our suspicion is that you have this stable object that your body is accustomed to tuning out, but it’s still there and your sensory system knows it,” says David Whittinghill, from Purdue University’s Department of Computer Graphics Technology.
Curiously, given how prominent the nose appears in the above screenshot (which is an actual screen from Purdue’s testig), Whittinghill also says “Surprisingly, subjects did not notice the nasum virtualis while they were playing the games, and they were incredulous when its presence was revealed to them later in debriefings.”
(via Daily Dot)
Comments
15 responses to “A Very Strange Solution To Stop People Getting Sick Using VR”
This solution’s not to be sniffed at.
I definitely think they are right on the nose with this solution
I have an eye for these…. D’oh!
Personally, I think the idea stinks…….
Wait, 3 comments?
With 3 up votes each?
Made on the 26th day (6/2=3)
Of the 3rd month?
With the last comment made at 8:53?
……………..NEW METROID CONFIRMED
Do they make noses in an olfactory?
You people are proving to be quite nosy with this game, I’d like to see you keep your noses to the grindstones and make a game that tries not to be so n(o)auseating!
Makes sense, our nose is actually visible to us all the time, but we tune it out, so I guess it would work the same in VR.
I forsee a settings menu titled “Nose size and colouration”.
I dunno, I suppose I would take a pick at the idea.
ive only been arguing this exact point for the past 2 years. your nose subliminally provides a centre of focus.
I wonder of this will help with mind over matter type stuff.
Like, if I put a freshly baked chocolate cake on screen with NPCs like “can you smell that cake?” Will players be able to smell it? It’s an interesting line of thought.
Wow I went cross eyed to get the 3D effect before reading the article, I didn’t even notice the nose!
“the nasum virtualis” – this is amazing! BRB renaming all my game components with scientific terms
… This makes me wonder if there’s a correlation between people who get VR sickness and nose size. I never got sick on the Rift DK1, but I have a comparatively small nose. The bigger the nose -> the more you have to ignore it in your vision -> the more you notice it missing in VR -> the more VR sickness?
Anyone got some funding for a bunch of VR headsets and hiring test subjects of various proboscis prominences?
All these olfactory puns makes my nose twitch