Comparison of Visual Fatigue caused by Head-Mounted Display for Virtual Reality and Two-Dimensional Display using Objective and Subjective Evaluation.

This study aimed to evaluate objective and subjective visual fatigue experienced before and after performing a visual task, while using a head-mounted display for virtual reality (VR-HMD) and two-dimensional (2D) display. Binocular fusion maintenance (BFM) was measured using a binocular open-view Shack-Hartmann wavefront aberrometer equipped with liquid crystal shutters. Twelve healthy subjects performed the BFM test and completed a questionnaire regarding subjective symptoms before and after performing a visual task that induces low visually induced motion sickness (VIMS). BFM (P = 0.87) and total subjective eye symptom scores (P = 0.38) were not significantly different between both groups, although these values were significantly lower after the visual task than before the task within both groups (P < 0.05). These findings suggest that visual fatigue after using a VR-HMD is not significantly different from that after using a 2D display in the presence of low-VIMS VR content. Practitioner Summary: Objective and subjective evaluation of visual fatigue were not significantly different with the use of a head-mounted display for virtual reality (VR-HMD) and two-dimensional display. These results should be valuable not only to engineers developing VR content but also to researchers involved in the evaluation of visual fatigue using VR-HMD.