Motion Sickness and Human Performance – Exploring the Impact of Driving Simulator User Trials
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-93885-1_40
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Summary
This study investigates the impact of motion sickness (MS) on human performance during driving simulator trials, addressing concerns regarding the validity of data collected in simulated environments. As the use of vehicle simulators increases for research and development, particularly for autonomous vehicles, understanding whether MS compromises participant performance is critical for ensuring that simulator results are transferable to real-world applications. The research specifically examines how MS affects six categories of driver performance: physical, cognitive, visual, and their intersections. The experimental design involved 51 participants (27 male, 24 female) who underwent a 30-minute driving scenario in a fixed-base simulator. Before and after the simulation, participants completed six standardized tests measuring visual acuity, physical dexterity (card turning), cognitive ability (n-back test), visual-cognitive skills (mental rotation), physical-visual coordination (Purdue Pegboard), and physical-cognitive reaction time. Motion sickness levels were monitored using the Simulation Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) and the Fast Motion Sickness Questionnaire (FMS). Participants were categorized into those who completed the scenario and those who dropped out due to MS severity. The results indicated that 45% of participants dropped out due to motion sickness, with females dropping out at a significantly higher rate than males, primarily driven by higher reported nausea levels. Age had no significant effect on MS onset. Crucially, the study found that motion sickness significantly impaired performance in cognitive, physical, physical-visual, and physical-cognitive tasks. Specifically, participants who dropped out performed significantly worse on the cognitive n-back test, the physical card turning test, the dominant-hand physical-visual pegboard test, and the physical-cognitive reaction time test compared to their baseline scores. In contrast, simulator use alone did not significantly affect performance for participants who completed the trial without severe sickness, except for a slight increase in reaction time. Visual performance showed no significant change, though lighting conditions may have confounded these results. The findings suggest that simulator-based user trial data remains valid for participants who do not experience significant motion sickness, as their performance metrics remain largely unchanged. However, for participants experiencing MS, particularly those dropping out, cognitive and physical-motor capabilities are significantly degraded. This implies that MS introduces a confounding variable that can invalidate performance data in simulator studies. The study highlights the need for careful monitoring of MS in future trials and suggests that nausea is a key predictor of dropout, particularly in female participants. These conclusions provide a framework for assessing the reliability of simulator data and underscore the importance of mitigating motion sickness to ensure accurate human factors research.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 7 | 2026-06-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
| enrich | failed | — | — | — | 3 | 2026-07-02 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-07 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 8 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
Topics
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- simulator sickness
- passenger motion sickness comfort
- simulator validity fidelity
- simulator training transfer
Information type
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- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
- Methodological Resource: validation psychometrics, tool software