As more virtual reality technologies are beginning to make their way into the living room, a team of researchers from the Purdue University in the U.S. has been looking for ways to fight simulator sickness.

Simulator sickness, which is a subset of motion sickness according to a report, occurs when multiple senses are not in accord with one another. This means that when the sense of sight is not in accordance with the sense of hearing in the virtual world, confusion arises.

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A virtual reality user, for example, may be riding a roller coaster through his "eyes" in the virtual world, but his body is telling him he's in his own living room.

The symptoms of simulator sickness include dizziness, a feeling of disorientation, and nausea.

Assistant Professor David Whittinghill said, "The problem is your perceptual system does not like it when the motion of your body and your visual system are out of synch."

"So if you see motion in your field of view you expect to be moving, and if you have motion in your eyes without motion in your vestibular system you get sick."

Researchers from the Department of Computer Graphics Technology at the Purdue University were able to solve this problem by adding a virtual nose in the virtual world.

They claim this natural method helped their test subjects stay much longer in virtual reality without getting sick. The researchers added that the virtual nose acts as a visual reference that moves along with the point of view of the observer.

This new method will also be very useful for virtual reality games, according to Whittinghill. He said, "You are constantly seeing your own nose. You tune it out, but it's still there, perhaps giving you a frame of reference to help ground you."

TagsVirtual Reality, How Virtual Nose Helps Reduce Simulator Sickness, Virtual World, VR, Simulator Sickness, Senses, Purdue University, Department of Computer Graphics Technology, Virtual Reality Games