Just Roll with It: Exploring the Mitigating Effects of Postural Alignment on Vection-Induced Cybersickness in Virtual Reality Over Time

TL;DR

This study addresses vection-induced cybersickness in VR and investigates whether anticipatory postural alignment can mitigate symptoms over time. Using a VR driving paradigm with three routes and a CLMM on Fast Motion Scale scores, the authors examine how trunk-roll alignment (RMSE_Trunk), exposure time, route progression, training vs control groups, and individual susceptibility (VIMSSQ) relate to cybersickness. Key findings show that trunk misalignment increases cybersickness risk by about $5 ext{%}$ (OR = $1.05$), each additional VR minute raises risk by about $11 ext{%}$ (OR = $1.11$), repeated exposure reduces risk by $75 ext{%}$ (OR = $0.25$), and higher susceptibility increases risk by about $8 ext{%}$ per unit (OR = $1.08$), suggesting postural alignment as a natural mitigation and habituation effects with exposure. Practically, this points to designing adaptive cues that encourage posture alignment with virtual motion and to personalized exposure strategies to reduce cybersickness in VR training and simulation contexts, potentially augmented with real-time postural feedback.

Abstract

Cybersickness remains a significant challenge in virtual reality (VR), limiting its usability across various applications. Existing mitigation strategies focus on optimising VR hardware and/or software and enhancing self-motion perception to minimise sensory conflict. However, anticipatory postural adaptation, a strategy widely studied with regards to motion sickness while being driven, has not been systematically examined in VR. Therefore, in this study, we explore whether adopting comfort-orientated postural movements, based on the literature, mitigates cybersickness. We conducted an exploratory analysis using a cumulative link mixed model (CLMM) on secondary data from a VR-based postural alignment experiment. Results indicate that misalignment between trunk roll and the virtual trajectory increases the odds of reporting higher cybersickness scores by 5%. Additionally, each additional minute in VR increases the odds of reporting higher cybersickness scores (FMS scores) by 11% %, but prolonged exposure leads to a 75% % reduction in the odds of reporting cybersickness symptoms, suggesting adaptation effects. Individual differences also play a role, with higher cybersickness susceptibility increasing the odds of reporting higher symptom severity by 8%. These findings indicate that anticipatory postural adaptation could serve as a natural mitigation strategy for cybersickness. VR applications, particularly in training and simulation, may benefit from designing adaptive cues that encourage users to align their posture with virtual movement. Future research should explore real-time postural feedback mechanisms to enhance user comfort and reduce cybersickness.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: Images A and B are screenshots of MATE-AV and correspond to the hot air balloons and the coin alignment task, respectively. Image C shows a map view of the two routes in MATE-AV Croucher2025. The condition route (route 1) is the entire length of the route (red and blue sections), whilst the pre-condition and post-condition routes (route 2) are only the blue section.
• Figure 2: RMSE Trunk Roll Angles per Minute per Participant for the Entire Experiment
• Figure 3: Total frequency of FMS scores from the entire experiment.