Investigating External Airflow and Reduced Room Temperature to Reduce Virtual Reality Sickness

Virtual Reality (VR) provides a new way for people to interact with technology, but it comes with its own challenges that can restrict its accessibility for the general public. Not everyone is able to use VR due to a phenomenon known as VR sickness, where users experience motion sickness like symptoms when using VR. This paper presents two studies that investigates the impact of introducing an external airflow and reducing room temperature on people during a VR experience. 33 participants were used across these studies who played the same VR game in each condition, a control, an airflow and a reduced room temperature. Our results show participants had a 28% reduction in average VR sickness with the external airflow, as compared against the control and reduced room temperature. Most participants also responded that they preferred the airflow condition the most, citing that it made them less sick and more comfortable.