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Abstract
Some users of virtual reality (VR) technology experience negative symptoms, known as cybersickness, sometimes severe enough to cause discontinuation of VR use. Despite decades of research, there has been relatively little progress understanding the underlying causal mechanisms of cybersickness. Review of the measures used to assess cybersickness symptoms, particularly the subjective psychological components of cybersickness, indicated that extant questionnaires may exhibit psychometric problems that could affect interpretation of results. In the present study, new data were collected (N = 202) to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ), the most commonly reported measure of cybersickness symptoms, in the context of virtual reality. Findings suggest that the SSQ, as commonly used, is not applicable to VR. An alternative approach to measure cybersickness is suggested. Overall, incidence and severity of cybersickness was very low and participants rated the VR experience as highly entertaining.