13 | Postural control training for self-enhancing motion comfort while being driven: does sensorimotor feedback help?

Croucher C, Pham Xuan R, Brietzke A, Marchal Crespo L, Papaioannou G | Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands and Volkswagen, Wolfsburg, Germany

Mitigating motion sickness in vehicles remains an ongoing challenge. Current mitigation approaches focus on optimising vehicle motion and creating efficient vehicle-user interaction. However, rather than solely focusing on vehicle configuration or requiring attention from occupants, we recently proved the feasibility of a VR-based serious game (MATE-AV) to train occupants in automated vehicles to adopt comfort-oriented postural control strategies (e.g., leaning into the curves) and self-enhance their motion comfort while being driven in a virtual environment. The initial experiment was missing aspects of sensorimotor feedback (i.e., vibrations, visual and vestibular feedback) which have been proven to enhance postural control training in other studies. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the efficiency of MATE-AV with sensorimotor feedback, after coupling the game with a motion platform. Specifically, we conducted a 3x2 mixed-design experiment, in which participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups (VR-training or Control) and were driven along three routes (pre-condition, condition, and post-condition) in the virtual environment. During the condition route, those in the VR-training group received implicit training cues to motivate participants to lean into the direction of the curves. The results will discuss the efficiency of the training, along with users’ experience (cybersickness, cognitive load, immersion, etc.) in comparison with the previous experiment.