Kourtesis and teammates evaluated the experience of listening to music virtually. They report that “participants performed an assessment four times, once before the rides (baseline), and then once after each ride (3 rides). In each ride either Calming, or Joyful, or No Music was played. During each ride, linear and angular accelerations took place to induce cybersickness in the participants. In each assessment, while immersed in VR, the participants evaluated their cybersickness symptomatology and performed a verbal working memory task, a visuospatial working memory task, and a psychomotor task. While responding to the cybersickness questionnaire (3D UI), eye-tracking was conducted to measure reading time and pupillometry. The results showed that Joyful and Calming music substantially decreased the intensity of nausea-related symptoms. However, only Joyful music significantly decreased the overall cybersickness intensity. Importantly, cybersickness was found to decrease verbal working memory performance and pupil size. Also, it significantly decelerated psychomotor (reaction time) and reading abilities.”
Panagiotis Kourtesis, Rayaan Amir, Josie Linnell, Ferran Argelaguet, and Sarah MacPherson. “Cybersickness, Cognition, and Motor Skills: The Effects of Music, Gender, and Gaming Experience.” IEEE Xplore, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 2326-2336, DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2023.3247062