Display lag effects on postural stability and cybersickness during active exposures to HMD virtual reality

This study examined whether a person's spontaneous postural sway before, and their head-movements during, exposure to virtual reality (VR) predicts their experiences of cybersickness. We compared the stability of head and body movements made by 50 HMD users to the sickness they experienced during VR simulations with different amounts of display lag. Consistent with Postural Instability Theory, we found that: 1) naturally unstable participants were significantly more likely to become sick during these laggy simulations; and 2) the severity of this sickness depended on the spatial magnitude and the temporal dynamics of their head movements during active HMD VR.