EEG Visualization for Cybersickness Detection during Playing 3D Video Games

The development of Virtual Reality (VR) technology has provided a new choice for the industry of video game developers to explore VR game content. The use of 3D video games is increasingly popular recently among players. However, playing 3D video game can cause negative effects like nausea, headache, eyestrain, and vomiting. This side effect is called cybersickness. Cybersickness is an unpleasant condition that appears due to VR exposure. Cybersickness actually can be measured by using a subjective measurement called SSQ questionnaire, while for more objective method, electroencephalograph (EEG) is implemented. In this study, we visualized the EEG of 9 subjects who played a 3D video game called 'Mirror Edge' to capture and investigate the pattern of Cybersickness. The questionnaire results were used as references for determining the cybersickness condition. The visualization was done by using interactive graphical information techniques and topographic mapping methods of frontal area channels (F3 and F4) and occipital areas channels (O1 and O2) of gamma (γ) band. The statistical parameter, such as standard deviation was used to visualize the cybersickness. The results showed an increase of standard deviation value in gamma band when the subject playing video game for a few minutes compared to the baseline condition. This indicates that the cybersickness was initiated. From all of 9 subjects, we found that the average time of cybersickness initiation for channels F3 and F4 are at 97th seconds and at 92nd seconds consecutively, while for channels O1 and O2 are at 21st seconds and at 44th seconds. We conclude that by visualizing the standard deviation value of EEG during playing 3D video games, cybersickness initiation can be determined subjectively.