When we move through the environment, we feel the gravitational forces on our bodies and our vestibular systems. But our sense of self-motion is also affected by what comes in through vision. For instance, a visual pattern that is seen as expanding may be taken as a cue that one is moving forward towards the pattern. Such optical flow patterns are largely responsible for the perception of self-motion that often results in virtual environments such as wide screen cinemas (e.g., IMAX) and vehicle simulators.
One of the problems that has prevented more widespread use of virtual environments is that they can induce motion sickness symptoms such as headache, nausea, and vomiting. With NSF support, Dr. Frederick Bonato and Dr. Andrea Bubka will investigate the visual features of virtual environments that are most influential in producing self-motion perception and the accompanying motion sickness symptoms. The basic approach is to test how certain aspects of virtual environments affect measures of self-motion perception and motion sickness. The measures used include computer-interfacing, physiological measurements, and subjective ratings. The results of these experiments promise to give us a better understanding of self-motion perception in both virtual and real environments. They also hold the possibility of contributing to the design of better virtual environments and a better understanding of the perceptual factors that cause motion sickness.
