Kinematic Sickness: Understanding Cybersickness Through Body Kinematics

Postural Instability Theory (PIT) proposes that individuals who are naturally unstable on their feet are more susceptible to cybersickness. We hypothesize that this relationship extends to locomotive VR, such that people who exhibit greater instability when walking without VR will also be more susceptible to cybersickness in a locomotive VR setup. To test this, we analyzed participants' natural walking kinematics alongside their cybersickness responses and kinematic patterns during mobile VR use. Our results showed that vertical Center of Mass movement during pre-VR walking showed promise for identifying individuals susceptible to cybersickness. Spatial stability metrics emerged as stronger predictors of cybersickness than time-series measures, suggesting that spatial characteristics of gait may be more informative indicators of susceptibility in mobile VR contexts. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for baseline postural stability when designing and personalizing mobile VR experiences.