Does the testing environment matter? Carsickness across on-road, test-track, and driving simulator conditions

2026-02-26

AI Summary

This study addresses the lack of standardized comparisons across real-road, test-track, and driving simulator environments in motion sickness research, which has limited the comparability and external validity of findings. For the first time, it systematically compares participants’ subjective motion sickness ratings—assessed using the Misery Scale and the Motion Sickness Assessment Questionnaire—alongside objective physiological and kinematic measures, while also incorporating psychological factors. Results reveal that motion-based driving simulators, constrained by the operational envelope of their motion platforms, fail to reproduce the critical low-frequency (<0.5 Hz) motions that induce motion sickness in real-world scenarios, leading to significantly lower sickness responses. This finding underscores a fundamental limitation of current simulators in motion sickness research and provides empirical evidence to guide improvements in their ecological validity.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Simulating Human Behavior
• Computer Vision: Motion & Tracking
• Search and Optimization: Sampling/Simulation-based Search

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data generation and simulation
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Carsickness has gained significant attention with the rise of automated vehicles, prompting extensive research across on-road, test-track, and driving simulator environments to understand its occurrence and develop mitigation strategies. However, the lack of carsickness standardization complicates comparisons across studies and environments. Previous works demonstrate measurement validity between two setups at most (e.g., on-road vs. driving simulator), leaving gaps in multi-environment comparisons. This study investigates the recreation of an on-road motion sickness exposure - previously replicated on a test track - using a motion-based driving simulator. Twenty-eight participants performed an eyes-off-road non-driving task while reporting motion sickness using the Misery Scale during the experiment and the Motion Sickness Assessment Questionnaire afterward. Psychological factors known to influence motion sickness were also assessed. The results present subjective and objective measurements for motion sickness across the considered environments. In this paper, acceleration measurements, objective metrics and subjective motion sickness ratings across environments are compared, highlighting key differences in sickness occurrence for simulator-based research validity. Significantly lower motion sickness scores are reported in the simulator compared to on-road and test-track conditions, due to its limited working envelope to reproduce low-frequency (<0.5 Hz) motions, which are the most provocative for motion sickness.

Problem

• carsickness
• driving simulator
• motion sickness
• test environment
• standardization

Innovation

• motion sickness
• driving simulator
• multi-environment comparison
• low-frequency motion
• simulator validity