Does A Secondary Task Inhibit Vection in Virtual Reality?

Vection is commonly defined as the illusory sensation of self-motion. Research on vection can assist in improving the fidelity of motion simulators. Vection can be influenced through top-down factors, such as attention, but previous research on the effect of a secondary task on vection presented conflicting findings. We investigated the effect of a visual discrimination reaction time task on vection. Twenty-nine participants were visually and audibly immersed in virtual environments with different levels of ecological relevance wherein they used a joystick to continuously report on their vection experience. In contrast to previous research, our results showed no significant effect of a secondary task on vection measures nor an effect of sensory cues and environment context on secondary task performance. We conclude that participants’ ability to report their vection experience was unaffected whilst performing a visual attention reaction time task.