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When I worked with people who had been writing code for VR for a long time a large portion of them didn't use VR much because of nausea issues. I don't think to

When I worked with people who had been writing code for VR for a long time a large portion of them didn't use VR much because of nausea issues. I don't think tolerance is as easy to achieve as people think, and can get worse over time instead of better. I think some people become tolerant of a mild unpleasantness. But just as many people end up finding the entire experience unpleasant for reasons that aren't obvious to them (but I suspect are related to nausea), leading to VR's very poor retention.

jnwatson 2y ago
Figure skating is evidence that one can "train" one's vestibular system to ignore the mixed signals. Now that I think of it, an anti-nausea VR training program would be excellent to treat motion sickness.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Is it? There are not that many figure skaters in the grand scheme of things. I’d assume there’s some element of self-selection going on along with the training.
- cubefox 2y ago
  Figure skating doesn't induce mixed signals I believe. The mixed signals from VR presumably come from the inner ear accelerometer giving different signals than the visual system.
fnordpiglet 2y ago
I’d note the experience is not dissimilar to motion sickness, which despite being present in some humans, hasn’t stopped us from using cars or boats. Use of cars and boats allows people to become adapted to the experience through the amazing plasticity of the human brain. Now, the use cases for cars and boats might be more compelling for sure, and maybe for those that experience this discomfort its benefits don’t outweigh the unpleasantness of the adaptive period, but I’d note motion sickness isn’t universal, and for smaller motions like automobiles (probably more similar to VR than boats which are an extreme), not even that common.
cubefox 2y ago
Many people even get nausea from playing non-VR first person shooters, or things like too much screen shake. Nowadays most games have a slider to increase the field of view, which decreases nausea, but for a long time it simply wasn't known that this is an issue. There are some problems which people don't tend to complain about, they just avoid products which cause those issues, apparently "for reasons that aren't obvious to them".

jnwatson 2y ago

Figure skating is evidence that one can "train" one's vestibular system to ignore the mixed signals. Now that I think of it, an anti-nausea VR training program would be excellent to treat motion sickness.

bee_rider 2y ago
Is it? There are not that many figure skaters in the grand scheme of things. I’d assume there’s some element of self-selection going on along with the training.
cubefox 2y ago
Figure skating doesn't induce mixed signals I believe. The mixed signals from VR presumably come from the inner ear accelerometer giving different signals than the visual system.

fnordpiglet 2y ago

I’d note the experience is not dissimilar to motion sickness, which despite being present in some humans, hasn’t stopped us from using cars or boats. Use of cars and boats allows people to become adapted to the experience through the amazing plasticity of the human brain. Now, the use cases for cars and boats might be more compelling for sure, and maybe for those that experience this discomfort its benefits don’t outweigh the unpleasantness of the adaptive period, but I’d note motion sickness isn’t universal, and for smaller motions like automobiles (probably more similar to VR than boats which are an extreme), not even that common.

cubefox 2y ago

Many people even get nausea from playing non-VR first person shooters, or things like too much screen shake. Nowadays most games have a slider to increase the field of view, which decreases nausea, but for a long time it simply wasn't known that this is an issue. There are some problems which people don't tend to complain about, they just avoid products which cause those issues, apparently "for reasons that aren't obvious to them".