Virtual reality raises real risk of motion sickness
Women more likely to feel nausea than men using gaming headset
GAME ON Playing a virtual reality game using a headset could give you motion sickness, particularly if you are a woman, a study using the Oculus Rift concluded.
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung/flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
With virtual reality finally hitting the consumer market this year, VR headsets are bound to make their way onto a lot of holiday shopping lists. But new research suggests these gifts could also give some of their recipients motion sickness — especially if they’re women.
In a test of people playing one virtual reality game using an Oculus Rift headset, more than half felt sick within 15 minutes, a team of scientists at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis reports online December 3 in Experimental Brain Research. Among women, nearly four out of five felt sick.
So-called VR sickness, also known as simulator sickness or cybersickness, has been recognized since the 1980s, when the U.S. military noticed that flight simulators were nauseating its pilots. In recent years, anecdotal reports began trickling in about the new generation of head-mounted virtual reality displays making
