Exploring Visual Patterns Contributing to Cybersickness in Augmented Reality

As augmented reality (AR) devices become more common in everyday settings, user comfort is challenged by cybersickness, a visually induced motion sickness characterized by symptoms such as nausea, disorientation, and oculomotor strain. While it is known that these symptoms can severely degrade the user experience and diminish a user’s sense of immersion, little is understood about the specific visual factors that trigger them in AR. Specifically, there remains a research gap regarding how combinations of moving virtual elements and varying real-world background dynamics interact to override the physical world’s natural stabilizing effect. To address this gap, this thesis investigates how various virtual clutter and different physical backgrounds interact to influence user well-being during AR exposure. To explore these factors, a custom augmented reality application and a supporting backend infrastructure were developed to conduct an experiment. We conducted a user study with 30 participants who completed a shape-placement task under varying conditions of visual clutter (none, static, or dynamic) and background dynamics (neutral background and dynamic video background). The study collected subjective feedback, such as sickness questionnaires, and objective data, including task performance and physical sway. The evaluation suggests that dynamic visual clutter increases real-time sickness scores and mental demand compared to static and no-clutter conditions, while also reducing task performance. Additionally, exposure to a dynamic background resulted in higher overall sickness ratings and increased physical sway in the anteroposterior directions. While qualitative feedback suggests that deep task engagement might help users ignore visual interference, the results indicate that both the design of virtual content and the physical environment influence user comfort. These findings can help inform the development of safer design guidelines to support well-being in augmented reality.