Beyond Feeling Sick: The Visual and Cognitive Aftereffects of Virtual Reality

Developing an understanding of how virtual reality (VR) aftereffects may influence later activities could help to minimise the risk of using head-mounted displays (HMDs) for various applications. This study investigated the visual and cognitive aftereffects of using HMDs and their relationship to the reporting of VR sickness symptoms. Visual (accommodation and vergence) and cognitive (reaction time and rapid visual processing) assessments were employed before and after participants engage in a 30-minute VR table tennis game (VR group, n = 27) or went about their daily activities (control group, n = 28). VR sickness symptoms were captured using the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). The data showed changes in accommodation but no concurrent changes in vergence, which likely stems from decoupling accommodation and vergence in VR. Furthermore, larger changes in accommodation were linked to a greater reporting of sickness symptoms suggesting that decoupling accommodation and vergence could be more adverse than previously thought. Participants in the VR group also showed slower decision (cognitive) times, but VR did not seem to affect their movement times in a five-choice reaction time task. The novel visual and cognitive findings from this study may be valuable to obtain a better understanding of the user issues and safety around VR usage.