Effect of economically friendly acustimulation approach against cybersickness in video-watching tasks using consumer virtual reality devices

Background: Consumer virtual reality (VR) devices are becoming more prevalent in the market, but cybersickness induced by VR devices limits their potential application and promotion. Acustimulation has been found effective in reducing cybersickness symptoms. However, in previous forms, the more effective way of acustimulation is either intrusive or electrical which is hard to be applied to daily VR use. Purpose: In this study, we aimed to find a both simple and more effective acustimulation approach, acupressure plus acupaste (AcP+) to reducing the adverse effects caused by cybersickness from VR applications. Method: In this study, we set three conditions: acupressure plus acupaste (AcP+) (main condition of interest), acupressure with fake acupaste (AcP), and a no acustimulation condition (NoAcP). In AcP and AcP + conditions, we applied acupressure or acupressure with true acupaste on P6 point before conducting video-watching tasks using VR headsets, while in NoAcP condition, participants received no special treatment before video-watching tasks. We used questionnaires to measure symptoms of cybersickness and compared the results between these 3 conditions, especially between acupressure plus acupaste (AcP+) and acupressure (AcP) to examine the effect of AcP+, and compared AcP and AcP+ with NoAcP to confirm the effect of acustimulation. Result: Participants reported significant fewer symptoms of cybersickness nausea feelings in both acustimulation methods, compared with NoAcP; and AcP+ was more effective than AcP against cybersickness on visual oculomotor aspect, and facilitated cybersickness recovery. Implication: It would be promising to develop acupressure equipment and apply stimulation before VR application to reduce cybersickness.