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Motion sickness, body movement, and claustrophobia during passive restraint

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Abstract

Standing participants were passively restrained and exposed to oscillating visual motion. Thirty-nine percent of participants reported motion sickness. Despite passive restraint, participants exhibited displacements of the center of pressure, and prior to the onset of motion sickness the evolution of these displacements differed between participants who later became sick and those who did not. Claustrophobia occurred during restraint, but only among participants who became motion sick. The results are consistent with the postural instability theory of motion sickness. We discuss the possible relation between claustrophobia symptoms, postural movements and motion sickness incidence.

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Notes

  1. In the mathematics of dynamic systems, instability has a precise definition related to a system’s response to a change in initial conditions or to a perturbation (e.g., Strogatz 1993). Such conceptions of instability may be related to postural instability, but there is no a priori reason to define postural instability in such a specific sense. Thus, we regard the definitions of postural stability and instability as being open questions, and we believe that our research relating motion sickness to postural movements may contribute to clarifying the concept of postural instability.

  2. The studies cited here did not assess persons with anxiety disorders.

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Acknowledgment

We thank Nat Hemasilpin for motion control programming and control systems engineering. This research was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01 DC005387-01A2), and by the National Science Foundation (BCS−0236627 and CMS−0432992)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota, 1900 University Ave. SE, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Elise Faugloire, Cédrick T. Bonnet & Thomas A. Stoffregen

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, ML376, 429-A Dyer Hall, Cincinnati, OH, 45221, USA

    Michael A. Riley

  3. Motor Efficiency and Deficiency Laboratory, University of Montpellier, 1 700, av. du Pic St Loup, 34090, Montpellier, France

    Benoît G. Bardy

Authors
  1. Elise Faugloire
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  2. Cédrick T. Bonnet
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  3. Michael A. Riley
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  4. Benoît G. Bardy
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  5. Thomas A. Stoffregen
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Correspondence to Thomas A. Stoffregen.

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Faugloire, E., Bonnet, C.T., Riley, M.A. et al. Motion sickness, body movement, and claustrophobia during passive restraint. Exp Brain Res 177, 520–532 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0700-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0700-7

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