There May Be a Solution to Motion Sickness After All

Anyone can experience motion sickness, and approximately one in three people are known to be highly susceptible to motion sickness – a number that University of Warwick researchers fear will only increase once autonomous vehicles become a reality and take to the roadways. 

To try and solve this impending problem, the team from WMG, University of Warwick recruited 42 participants who were either driven around in a car or placed in a driving simulator while reporting on their level of nausea, according to IFLScience.com. Each person was then asked to spend 15 minutes a day performing a range of visuospatial tasks for the next two weeks, including paper folding exercises and a mental rotation test. After this two week period, their visuospatial skills improved by an average of 40%, with a 51% reduction in motion sickness when in a ride simulator and a 58% decrease in on-road trials.

“Being able to reduce an individual’s personal susceptibility to motion-sickness using simple ‘brain training style’ tasks training is a massive step-forward in the development of future transportation systems, including autonomous vehicles,” Dr. Joseph Smyth explains in a statement. “Human factors research is all about how we can design products and services that are pleasurable. Motion sickness has, for a long time, been a significant limitation to many peoples transport options and this research has shown a new method for how we can address this.”

Read the full study in Applied Ergonomics.