From: Mike Snow Subject: Re: HUMAN-FACTORS: Long term immersion in VR Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 16:45:37 -0400 Message-ID: <31D838F1.38F6@vt.edu> Organization: Virginia Tech Toni Emerson wrote: > This still leaves me with the burning question. Is there a scholarly > research that addresses the issue of long term immersion and the side > effects of wearing a HMD that long? Is there a published study on > long term immersion in a virtual environment? I don't know if anyone's mentioned the following article yet: Regan, E. C., and Price, K. R. (1994). The frequency of occurrence and severity of side-effects of immersion virtual reality. Aviation, Space, & Environmental Medicine, 65(6), 527-530. Our lab is now doing research on side effects of immersion and this article and Robert Kennedy's work seem to come up often in conversations on the topic. CBS Evening News the other night had a short piece featuring interviews with Kay Stanney and Robert Kennedy on side effects of immersive VR. Not surprisingly, the piece was somewhat sensational and left the viewer with the impression that spending 20 minutes in an HMD leaves a user with symptoms similar to drunkenness. I don't know if she's published anything yet, but it might be worth emailing Dr. Stanney. While it's not yet published and extended immersion has not been a focus of my research, I have run 36 subjects in three experiments to date. Sessions have lasted 3-5 hours with Ss spending 2.5-4 of that in a Virtual Research VR4. I've given everyone 3-5 minute breaks every 20 minutes or so (they get regular breaks after every fourth experimental trial). So far, I've dismissed five people partway into a session because they started to experience adverse symptoms (usually symptoms similar to motion sickness). Invariably, Ss either last the entire 3-5 hours or experience side effects almost immediately and quit within 15 minutes. Females over forty seem to be especially vulnerable to experiencing side effects. When someone experiences side effects, a comment such as, "I get motion sick in cars a lot, too," is very common. I realize this is all sketchy and anecdotal. In theory, at some point I'll run a fourth experiment, finish my dissertation, and publish the results. ;) Mike -- __ ________ Michael P. Snow \ \ / __ __/ FAX: (540)231-3322 Human-Computer Interaction Lab \ \/ / / / email: msnow@vt.edu ISE Department, Virginia Tech \ / / / phone: (540)231-3193 Blacksburg, VA 24061-0118 \/ /_/ WWW: http://hci.ise.vt.edu/~msnow/