Towards Neurotechnology to mitigate virtual reality motion sickness in susceptible individuals
Supervisors:
Professor Frank Pollick, School of Psychology and Neuroscience
Professor Stephen Brewster, Collage of Science and Engineering/School of Computing Science
PhD Project Summary:
Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential to enable new forms of entertainment, education, and interaction. However, an obstacle to acceptance of VR is that some individuals can experience feelings of nausea and discomfort, a phenomenon known as cybersickness or virtual reality motion sickness (VRMS). This PhD will use brain imaging such as fMRI to explore the neural basis of VRMS susceptibility – how it varies between individuals, and over time within one individual. This work complements other activity in our lab aimed at the development of neurotechnology mitigation techniques for cybersickness.
We plan the PhD student to first use brain imaging to explore vestibular cognition and potential mechanisms responsible for VRMS and what neural features might be associated with VRMS. From this the student will adapt existing mitigation techniques that employ neurostimulation and perform experiments in the lab, and in moving vehicles that explore new ways to mitigate cybersickness. The scenario of experiencing VRMS as a result of consuming VR in a moving vehicle is relevant because as VR becomes more popular and fully autonomous vehicles become a reality there will be a need to provide solutions to VRMS susceptible individuals.