Anticipation in virtual worlds: The effects of cue modality and response guidance on vehicle occupants' motion sickness and postural control

Abstract

This study investigates how anticipatory cues presented in virtual reality (VR) influence passengers’ postural control and motion sickness (MS) in a real driving context.
Participants were exposed to different cue modalities (visual, auditory, and combined audio-visual), while response guidance was manipulated between subjects, with one group receiving explicit instructions and the other not.

Results show that cue modality and response guidance significantly affect anticipatory behaviour. Visual and audio-visual cues enabled earlier and more pronounced anticipatory postural adjustments, whereas auditory cues alone were less effective and primarily elicited reactive responses. Providing explicit response guidance further enhanced participants’ ability to translate cues into appropriate anticipatory movements.

Despite these behavioural improvements, reductions in MS were limited. MS was influenced mainly by cue modality, with auditory-only cues consistently producing higher symptom scores than visual and audio-visual conditions. The relatively low overall sickness levels suggest that the experimental conditions may not have been sufficiently demanding to reveal stronger effects.

These findings indicate that effective anticipatory systems depend on both the clarity of sensory information and users’ understanding of how to act upon it. While anticipatory cues can improve postural control, their impact on MS appears to rely on richer, more interpretable cue designs and more challenging motion environments.