Abstract Cybersickness is a major barrier to the widespread adoption of virtual reality (VR), yet its underlying neurophysiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study investigated the relationship between vestibulomotor weighting and cybersickness. Vestibulomotor weighting was quantified using electrical vestibular stimulation (EVS), with coherence and gain between the EVS input and medial-lateral center-of-pressure (ML-CoP) responses indexing the contribution of vestibular input to postural control. Thirty-eight healthy young adults (females n=21, males n=17) completed a standing VR rollercoaster task while receiving continuous stochastic EVS (0–25 Hz; ±4.5 mA), with ML-CoP responses recorded using a force plate. Cybersickness was assessed using the Fast Motion Sickness Scale (FMS) and Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, and participants were classified as non-sick (FMS < 5), medium-sick (FMS ≥ 5), or high-sick (terminated the VR exposure early due to intolerance). Baseline EVS-ML-CoP coherence across 2.5–8 Hz was significantly greater in high-sick than in non-sick participants, indicating elevated vestibulomotor weighting in individuals who developed symptoms. During VR exposure, coherence declined over time in symptomatic groups (mean slope = −0.0027 for medium-sick), whereas non-sick participants maintained consistently low coherence (mean slope = −0.0005). Despite this reduction in vestibular coupling, postural sway increased in the high-sick group relative to the medium-and non-sick groups (+29% vs. −7% and −30% change in ML-CoP RMS, respectively), while vestibular-evoked response amplitude decreased (gain reduced by 64% across 2.5–3.5 Hz). These findings indicate that greater baseline vestibulomotor weighting was associated with increased susceptibility to cybersickness, whereas reductions in vestibular contributions during VR with EVS reflected adaptive reweighting that was insufficient to prevent instability and symptom progression. Together, the results highlight baseline sensory reliance as a key determinant of cybersickness vulnerability and suggest that reweighting during exposure plays a secondary, mitigating role. New and Noteworthy We provide the first evidence that baseline vestibulomotor weighting predicts susceptibility to cybersickness in virtual reality and is dynamically reduced during exposure. Using electrical vestibular stimulation, we show that symptomatic individuals begin with greater reliance on vestibular input for postural control and progressively downweight these signals in response to sensory conflict.

We asked how far multimodal consumer-wearable signals recorded during real general-aviation flight can be treated as construct-relevant measurement rather than as records of motion, posture, or task structure. Forty pilots flew five standardized maneuvers in a Cessna 172 while frontal electroencephalography (EEG and AF7/AF8), cardiac activity, electrodermal activity (EDA), eye movements, skin temperature, and flight dynamics were recorded, with segments paired with pilot self-reports and the four in-air maneuvers additionally paired with instructor competency ratings. We assembled three nested tiers of evidence, namely, known-groups sensitivity, within-person convergent evidence, and criterion-related association, and then tested prediction in held-out pilots. Signal quality supported inference, with trial-level availability from 85% to 97%. Self-reported stress varied across maneuvers (H = 61.1), but because maneuver order was largely fixed this variation is confounded with elapsed time, fatigue, physical dynamics, and sensor settling, and therefore cannot establish that any signal is specific to stress. Within-person convergence was strongest for cardiac (mean heart rate rrm =.57) and oculomotor (saccade and fixation rates rrm =.39) channels, with phasic EDA and frontal theta adding weaker support. Criterion-tier associations were re-examined with leave-one-pilot-out and wild cluster bootstrap inference: Kinematic and electrodermal associations held, whereas every frontal theta/alpha association proved to rest on individual pilots and did not survive. In cross-validation with tuning nested inside each training fold, sensor features did not exceed a maneuver-only baseline across pilots. Low-cost cardiac and oculomotor channels are the most promising basis for within-person stress monitoring, while pilot-general prediction will require individual calibration, stronger reference measures, and larger samples.

Consumer-grade wearable sensors may enable continuous monitoring of pilot workload and stress during flight training, yet most prior studies rely on simulators, raw-score labelling, and within-subject validation, limiting generalisability. This study evaluates whether electrodermal activity (EDA), electrocardiogram (ECG)-derived features, and wrist skin temperature, recorded from an Empatica Embrace Plus and a Polar H10 during real Cessna 172 flight training, can classify pilots' task-relative workload and stress deviations. Thirty-five pilots completed four flight segments and rated workload and stress after each. Fold-safe two-way residual binary labels removed inter-pilot scale-use differences and task-level effects, and five classifiers were evaluated under leave-one-subject-out (LOSO) cross-validation with Benjamini-Hochberg FDR correction. Under LOSO, a Linear SVC on combined features classified stress (macro F1 = 0.607) and XGBoost on EDA classified workload (macro F1 = 0.598) significantly above chance (padj=0.033); both remained stable under nested cross-validation with an inner hyperparameter search (nested 0.606 and 0.561). A LightGBM model on EDA gave a numerically higher stress score (0.611) that did not survive nested validation. Subject-dependent within-subject validation produced higher apparent performance (macro F1 = 0.853 for stress and 0.791 for workload), but a stricter within-pilot analysis was unstable. These contrasts indicate that personalised classification may be feasible after calibration, whereas uncalibrated cross-pilot prediction in real flight remains modest, with post-flight debriefing the most plausible near-term application.

Flight training assessment depends not only on whether a trainee completes a maneuver but also on how control actions unfold over time. To support interpretable, process-level assessment, we present a novel cognitive modelling approach that extends prior takeoff-focused work to a unified full-cycle modelling of takeoff and landing. We simulate pilot behavior in the Queueing Network-Adaptive Control of Thought Rational (QN-ACTR) cognitive architecture and integrate it in a closed-loop configuration with the X-Plane flight simulator via a User Datagram Protocol (UDP)/X-Plane Connect interface. Instead of continuous control-theoretic equations, we implement a discrete, parameter-based behavioral policy that encodes stage-conditioned targets, threshold-triggered transitions, and bounded corrective micro-steps, enabling observed errors to be attributed to specific stage definitions and control parameters. We evaluate the model against human flight data collected from 10 pilots, each performing one takeoff and one landing in a Cessna 172N at Brantford Airport (CYFD) at approximately 1 Hz. Using maneuver-level duration, event markers (rotation and touchdown speeds), and vertical-speed variability (estimated from altitude differencing), we compute root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) relative to the human reference distribution. Across these metrics, the model generates complete takeoff and landing traces under the tested conditions, matches some milestone speeds in order of magnitude, and differs in maneuver pacing, with lower variability than the recorded human traces, particularly during landing. These results support feasibility for process-level assessment and motivate future work on perturbations and individual differences to better reproduce human-like corrective control.

Pilot stress and workload are important safety concerns, but electroencephalography (EEG) classifiers for aviation have mostly been developed in simulators, with research-grade hardware, and with validation schemes that can leak participant information. We recorded frontal EEG from 31 general-aviation pilots using a consumer-grade Muse® S headband while they completed five standardized Cessna 172 flight tasks. From 1,177 valid 20-s segments, we extracted 333 features from the exported frontal band-power time series and classified task-level self-reported stress and workload using leave-one-subject-out (LOSO) cross-validation. A Random Forest model with within-fold ExtraTrees feature selection achieved F1 = 0.772 for stress and F1 = 0.842 for workload, with participant-level 95% bootstrap confidence intervals of [0.693, 0.841] and [0.775, 0.899], respectively. Ordinary 5-fold cross-validation that ignored participant boundaries inflated F1 by 0.089 to 0.155. A task-identity-only baseline reached similar aggregate F1 (stress = 0.805, workload = 0.841), indicating that much of the signal reflects task-associated physiology rather than task-independent cognitive states. EEG nonetheless carried information beyond task identity: it improved probabilistic discrimination (ROC-AUC) over a task-only baseline and raised F1 on active maneuvers, whereas adding task identity to the EEG model gave no measurable gain. These findings support consumer frontal EEG as a feasible research and training-debriefing sensor for standardized real-flight protocols, while showing why participant-independent and task-aware validation is necessary before operational claims are made.

Cybersickness is a major barrier to the adoption of virtual reality (VR), yet its underlying neurophysiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study investigated whether vestibulomotor responses, quantified using coherence and gain between electrical vestibular stimulation (EVS) and mediolateral center-of-pressure (ML-CoP) responses, are associated with susceptibility to cybersickness. Thirty-eight healthy young adults (21 females, 17 males) completed a standing VR rollercoaster task while receiving continuous stochastic EVS (0-25 Hz; ±4.5 mA), with ML-CoP responses measured using a force plate. Cybersickness was assessed using the Fast Motion Sickness Scale (FMS), and participants were classified as nonsick (FMS < 5), medium-sick (FMS ≥ 5), or high-sick (terminated the VR exposure early due to intolerance). Baseline EVS-ML-CoP coherence and gain were significantly greater in high-sick than in nonsick participants, with gain increasing by 61%, indicating stronger vestibulomotor responses before symptom onset. During VR exposure, coherence declined over time in symptomatic participants but remained stable in nonsick participants. Despite this reduction in vestibulomotor coupling, postural sway variation increased in the high-sick group relative to the medium- and nonsick groups (+29% vs. -7% and -30% ML-CoP RMS, respectively), whereas vestibular-evoked response amplitude decreased. These findings indicate that greater baseline vestibulomotor responses were associated with increased susceptibility to cybersickness, whereas reductions during VR exposure were insufficient to prevent increases in sway variation and symptom progression. Together, the results suggest that baseline vestibulomotor responses are more strongly associated with cybersickness susceptibility than changes occurring during VR exposure.NEW & NOTEWORTHY We provide the first evidence that baseline vestibulomotor responses predict susceptibility to cybersickness in virtual reality and are dynamically reduced during exposure. Using electrical vestibular stimulation, we show that individuals who develop cybersickness exhibit greater baseline vestibulomotor coupling and larger vestibular-evoked postural responses, followed by progressive reductions in vestibulomotor coupling during VR exposure.

How confidence ratings influence the perceived timing of sensory events in perceptual decision-making remains poorly understood. Metacognition - our ability to reflect on cognitive processes - is often assessed via confidence ratings in perceptual tasks. However, accessing meta-cognitive information can influence task performance, a phenomenon known as the reactivity effect. Here, we examine the presence of metacognitive reactivity via confidence ratings on the tem-poral binding window (TBW) in two multisensory time perception tasks that use identical stimuli but require different judgments: temporal order judgment (TOJ) and simultaneity judgment (SJ). Thirty-five participants (aged 18-39) completed TOJ and SJ tasks with and without confidence rat-ings via Prolific, an online participant recruitment platform. Psychometric functions were fitted to response and confidence data to determine the TBW and the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS). Adding confidence ratings improved performance in both tasks, with this effect being stronger in the SJ. TBWs significantly differed between TOJ and SJ tasks. Despite differences between the two tasks, TBWs from both were strongly correlated, as were the width parameters of confidence-derived curves, suggesting shared underlying mechanisms in both perceptual and metacognitive processes. These findings highlight the utility of confidence ratings in evaluating TOJ and SJ performance, revealing both task differences and commonalities. Finally, we reflect on the advantages and chal-lenges of online data collection via Prolific, including its diverse participant pool and timing precision limitations.

Perceiving postural instability accurately is crucial for fall prevention. While sensory integration of visual, vestibular, and somatosensory inputs is known to influence balance, the specific impact of high-consequence visual contexts, such as exposure to height, remains under-investigated due to safety constraints in physical environments. This study serves as a proof-of-concept investigation into the use of virtual reality (VR) for manipulating visual context during a postural temporal-order judgement task. In Experiment 1, participants performed the task in real-world conditions (eyes closed and eyes open). Perceived onset of instability was delayed in both conditions (eyes closed: 25.78 ms; eyes open: 12.33 ms), but these did not differ significantly from true simultaneity. Experiment 2 used VR to safely place participants at the edge of a virtual skyscraper. While perceptual delays remained nonsignificant, precision increased significantly in VR (26.89% increase) compared to the real-world eyes-open condition. These results suggest that while the perceived timing of instability is robust, the presence of a high-arousal visual context in VR enhances the precision of multisensory decision-making. As a foundational step in validating VR-based psychophysical balance assessments, these findings demonstrate the feasibility of using virtual environments to study complex sensory motor integration that is difficult to replicate in naturalistic settings.

Integrated multisensory feedback plays a crucial role in balance control. Minimal fingertip contact with a surface (light touch), reduces the center of pressure (CoP) by adding sensory information about postural orientation and balance state. Electrical vestibular stimulation (EVS) can increase sway by adding erroneous vestibular cues. This juxtaposition of conflicting sensory cues can be exploited to explore the dynamics of sensorimotor adaptations. We used continuous stochastic EVS (0-25 Hz; +/- 4 mA; 200-300 s) to evoke balance responses in CoP (experiment 1, experiment 2). Systems analyses (coherence, gain) quantified coupling and size of balance responses to EVS. We had participants either touch (TOUCH; <2 N) or not touch (NO-TOUCH) a load cell during EVS (experiment 1, experiment 2), or we intermittently removed the touch surface (experiment 2) to measure the effects of light touch on vestibular-evoked balance responses. We hypothesized that coherence and gain between EVS and CoP would decrease, consistent with the central nervous system (CNS) down-weighting vestibular cues that conflict with light touch. Light touch reduced CoP displacement but increased variation in the CoP signal explained by EVS input. Significant coherence between EVS and CoP was observed up to similar to 30 Hz in both conditions but was significantly greater in the TOUCH condition from 12 to 28.5 Hz. Conversely, EVS-CoP gain was 63% lower in TOUCH compared with NO-TOUCH. Our findings show that light touch can reduce the size of vestibular-evoked responses but also increase high-frequency vestibular contributions for sway. This suggests that the CNS can use discrete changes in sensory inputs to alter balance behavior but cannot fully suppress responses to a potent cue.

Area of interest (AOI)-based analytics have been demonstrated to be effective measures of gaze dispersion and cognitive demands, but require extensive pre-processing, limiting real-time applications. We introduce non-AOI-based metrics of visual dispersion (% Field of View: %FOV) and cognitive tunneling behaviours (i.e., prolonged fixation toward a small region in the environment) that depend on the average distance between fixations to the mean center, eliminating spatial segmentation and AOI-label validation processes. The utility of these novel metrics is examined in an immersive aviation simulation task where vision is degraded (e.g., visual acuity). When visual acuity was reduced, %FOV significantly decreased, reflecting reduced fixation distribution, while cognitive tunneling frequency and total duration increased. In line with previous AOI-based work, the proposed non-AOI metrics effectively captured changes in visual attention allocation suggestive of increased demand on other cognitive processes due to reduced visual information availability, demonstrating potential for real-time applications in complex environments.

Objective With the increasing affordability of virtual reality (VR) technology, VR exergames are emerging as promising tools for promoting physical activity and engagement among older adults. However, little is known about how VR-generated game metrics and user experience data evolve over time and influence long-term adherence. This study examined the feasibility of a custom VR exergame- Seas the Day -for at-home use during the COVID-19 lockdown. Methods Thirteen community-dwelling older adults completed 18 seated VR sessions over 6 weeks (3×/week), integrating Tai Chi, rowing, and fishing activities. Automatically recorded in-game metrics included rowing repetitions, Tai Chi completion time, fishing response times, distance traveled, and in-game errors. A difficulty-adjusted performance index (DAPI) was computed using session one as baseline to track progress over time. Participants also completed a Game User Experience Scale at weeks 3 and 6. Results Most participants showed improving or stable performance across sessions, with a smaller subset declining, highlighting individual differences. Significant gains were observed in Tai Chi completion time, rowing efficiency, and fishing response times. DAPI results confirmed overall upward performance trends despite repeated exposure. Game User Experience ratings remained high, particularly for enjoyment and ease of use, indicating sustained engagement and adherence. Conclusion Custom VR exergames can support physical activity and engagement among older adults in home settings, even during periods of social restriction. Game metrics and self-reported experience offer complementary insights into feasibility, adaptability, and individualized progress, underscoring VR exergaming's potential to promote well-being while emphasizing the need for personalized engagement strategies.

Human factors are central to aviation safety, with pilot cognitive states such as workload, stress, and situation awareness playing important roles in flight performance and safety. Although flight simulators are widely used for training and scientific research, they often lack the ecological validity needed to replicate pilot cognitive states from real flights. To address these limitations, a new in-flight data collection methodology for general aviation using a Cessna 172 aircraft, which is one of the most widely used aircraft for pilot training, is presented.The dataset combines:• Human data from wearable physiological sensors (electroencephalography, electrocardiography, electrodermal activity, and body temperature) and eye-tracking glasses.• Flight data from ADS-B flight recorder.• Pilot’s self-reported cognitive states and flight performance rate by instructor.The paper describes the sensor setup, flight task design, and data synchronization procedures. Potential analyses using statistical and machine learning methods are discussed to classify cognitive states and demonstrate the dataset’s value. This methodology supports human factors research and has practical value for applications in pilot training, performance evaluation, and aviation safety management. The method was applied in a field study with 25 participants, from which 20 complete multimodal datasets were retained after data cleaning. After collecting additional data, the resulting dataset will support further research on pilot performance and behavior.

Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly being used to promote exercise among older adults. The data captured through VR may be useful indicator of the game user’s experience as well as providing insight into functional ability of older adults. This paper presents classifiers to predict game user experience variables using VR data from community-dwelling older adults. Head-kinematic data of the VR headset was collected from 13 participants over a six-week period with three 20-minutes exergame sessions per week (e.g., 360 minutes per participant). Cognitive function was assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCa) and multisensory response-time (RT). Game user experience was captured through perceived-levels of cybersickness, enjoyment, and exertion after each session. Data was used as references for discrete binary and ternary classification patterns. Combinations of kinematic features were used to train different classifiers: K-nearest-neighbors (KNN), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), support vector machines (SVM), and decision trees. Maximum classification accuracy of 70% was found for MoCa, 68% for perceived exertion, 60% for cybersickness, 59% for multisensory RT, and 53% for perceived enjoyment. Results suggest unobtrusive recording of head kinematics from VR headsets combined with machine learning classifiers could be used to predict cognition, exertion, and game user experience among older adults.

Flight simulator sickness (SS) is a well-known phenomenon in aviation training, which can impact the safety and effectiveness of pilot training programs. Identifying and characterizing which flight maneuvers result in increased SS symptoms could help instructors tailor training to increase pilot retention and potentially improve training. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of different flight maneuvers on SS in a fixed-base simulator (ALSIM AL250). Our results indicate that a flight session with more intense flight maneuvers (landing with wind and taxiing) resulted in an increase in sickness symptoms (Total Sickness [ p = .012] and Oculomotor Disturbance [ p = 0.035] of the SSQ) compared to no changes after a session with less intense flight maneuvers (steep turn). These results demonstrate a need to explore which flight maneuvers are more likely to result in increased sickness symptoms and its effects on training and retention of student pilots. Keywords human factors , flight simulator , flight training , simulator sickness , sensory conflict

Integrated multisensory feedback plays a crucial role in balance control. Minimal fingertip contact with a surface (light touch), reduces the center of pressure (CoP) by adding sensory information about postural orientation and balance state. Electrical vestibular stimulation (EVS) can increase sway by adding erroneous vestibular cues. This juxtaposition of conflicting sensory cues can be exploited to explore the dynamics of sensorimotor adaptations. We used continuous stochastic EVS (0-25 Hz; ±4 mA; 200-300 s) to evoke balance responses in CoP (experiment 1, experiment 2). Systems analyses (coherence, gain) quantified coupling and size of balance responses to EVS. We had participants either touch (TOUCH; <2 N) or not touch (NO-TOUCH) a load cell during EVS (experiment 1, experiment 2), or we intermittently removed the touch surface (experiment 2) to measure the effects of light touch on vestibular-evoked balance responses. We hypothesized that coherence and gain between EVS and CoP would decrease, consistent with the central nervous system (CNS) down-weighting vestibular cues that conflict with light touch. Light touch reduced CoP displacement but increased variation in the CoP signal explained by EVS input. Significant coherence between EVS and CoP was observed up to ∼30 Hz in both conditions but was significantly greater in the TOUCH condition from 12 to 28.5 Hz. Conversely, EVS-CoP gain was 63% lower in TOUCH compared with NO-TOUCH. Our findings show that light touch can reduce the size of vestibular-evoked responses but also increase high-frequency vestibular contributions for sway. This suggests that the CNS can use discrete changes in sensory inputs to alter balance behavior but cannot fully suppress responses to a potent cue.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study reveals that minimal fingertip contact (light touch) during balance tasks not only diminishes the impact of electrical vestibular stimulation (EVS) on sway but also exposes a high-frequency center of pressure element, correlated to vestibular inputs, not typically seen in free standing. Specifically, light touch decreases the magnitude of EVS-induced sway while increasing coherence with EVS at higher frequencies. This illustrates the central nervous system's capacity to adaptively reweight sensorimotor processes for balance control.

The malaise symptoms of cybersickness are thought to be related to the sensory conflict present in the exposure to virtual reality (VR) content. When there is a sensory mismatch in the process of sensory perception, the perceptual estimate has been shown to change based on a reweighting mechanism between the relative contributions of the individual sensory signals involved. In this study, the reweighting of vestibular and body signals was assessed before and after exposure to different typical VR experiences and sickness severity was measured to investigate the relationship between susceptibility to cybersickness and sensory reweighting. Participants reported whether a visually presented line was rotated clockwise or counterclockwise from vertical while laying on their side in a subjective visual vertical (SVV) task. Task performance was recorded prior to VR exposure and after a low- and high-intensity VR game. The results show that the SVV was significantly shifted away from the body representation of upright and towards the vestibular signal after exposure to the high-intensity VR game. Cybersickness measured using the fast motion sickness (FMS) scale found that sickness severity ratings were higher in the high intensity compared to the low-intensity experience. The change in SVV from baseline after each VR exposure modelled using a simple 3-parameter Gaussian regression fit was found to explain 49.5% of the variance in the FMS ratings. These results highlight the aftereffects of VR for sensory perception and suggest a potential relationship between the susceptibility to cybersickness and sensory reweighting.

Background Sensory information processing plays a crucial role in monitoring the timing of external and internal events, including the control of balance. While previous research has investigated the role of vision in the perceived timing of postural instability onset with eyes closed and open, it is important to further explore the influence of visual context. Virtual reality offers a unique opportunity to manipulate visual information and assess its impact on balance control and the perceived timing of sensory events. Research Question Does visual information, particularly visual threat presented in virtual reality, alter the perceived timing of postural instability onset? Methods Two temporal order judgment tasks were conducted using virtual reality to manipulate visual information. Participants were placed on a virtual skyscraper to induce visual threat. The experiments investigated the impact of visual information on the perceived onset of postural instability while manipulating the presence/absence of visual threat. Results With vision available but without visual threat, the onset of a postural perturbation needed to occur 10.71-12.33 ms before a reference sound stimulus to be perceived as simultaneous. With visual threat, the onset needed to occur 4.45 ms before auditory cue onset to be perceived as simultaneous. While these delays were not significantly different from true simultaneity of perturbation and sound onset, participants were significantly more precise in their judgments when threatening visual information was present. Significance Our results show that visual context, particularly visual threat presented in virtual reality, may alter the perception of perturbation onset and the precision of judgments made. This has implications for understanding the role of vision in balance control and developing interventions to improve balance and prevent falls.

IntroductionThis pilot study employed a non-randomized control trial design to explore the impact of physical activity within a virtual reality (VR) environment on multisensory processing among community-dwelling older adults.MethodsThe investigation compared both chronic (over 6 weeks) and acute effects of VR-based physical activity to a reading control group. The evaluation metrics for multisensory processing included audiovisual response time (RT), simultaneity judgments (SJ), sound-induced flash illusion (SIFI), and temporal order judgments (TOJ). A total of 13 older adults were provided with VR headsets featuring custom-designed games, while another 14 older adults were assigned to a reading-based control group.ResultsResults indicated that acute engagement in physical activity led to higher accuracy in the SIFI task (experimental group: 85.6%; control group: 78.2%; p = 0.037). Additionally, both chronic and acute physical activity resulted in quicker response times (chronic: experimental group = 336.92; control group = 381.31; p = 0.012; acute: experimental group = 333.38; control group = 383.09; p = 0.006). Although the reading group showed a non-significant trend for greater improvement in mean RT, covariate analyses revealed that this discrepancy was due to the older age of the reading group.DiscussionThe findings suggest that immersive VR has potential utility for enhancing multisensory processing in older adults. However, future studies must rigorously control for participant variables like age and sex to ensure more accurate comparisons between experimental and control conditions.

Interactive virtual reality (VR) games combined with exercise (exergames) are a plausible strategy to encourage physical activity (PA) among older adults. However, there is little systematic evaluation of the feasibility, usability, and potential benefits of deploying at-home VR exergames among this population. Fifteen community-dwelling older adults (M = 67.33 ± 5.3, age range 60-77) (Table1) were recruited to play 18 sessions (each 15-20 min) of a custom-made VR exergame at home over six weeks. Recruitment, retention, and adherence rates were calculated to determine feasibility. The usability of the exergame was assessed through i) a game user experience questionnaire, ii) a self-reported physical/emotional discomfort questionnaire, and iii) a perceived enjoyment scale. The exploratory outcome measures included changes in i) PA, ii) exercise self-efficacy, iii) affect, iv) various cognitive and perceptual tasks and were assessed i) before and after acute data, and ii) before and after the intervention. Thirteen participants completed the study (13% attrition rate) without missing any exergaming session (100% adherence rate). The completion rate of cognitive assessments, perceptual tasks, and self-reported questionnaires was = 97%. Low levels of cybersickness were reported (M = 0.9 ±1.0 out of 10). The average perceived enjoyment and perceived rate of exertion were 3.2. ±1.1 (out of 5) and 2.4±1.9 (out of 10), respectively. Most of the participants (92.3%) found the exergame’s instructions easy to follow and had an overall positive experience (84.6%). Whereas the exergame was perceived as useful for increasing PA levels (61.6%), mood enhancement was reported among less than half of participants (46.2%) and only 38% indicated that they would choose VR exergaming for at-home PA. The likelihood of playing VR exergames in the future was also low (38.5%). The exploratory outcome measures are presented in Table 2. Our study provides insights into the feasibility and usability of a custom-made VR exergaming intervention to promote PA in community-dwelling older adults which may potentially benefit their well-being. Our findings inform the future adoption of VR at home. Our results can also be used to inform large-scale trials and support the design and deployment of other remote exergames and assessments.

A single bout of aerobic exercise is related to positive changes in higher-order cognitive function among older adults; however, the impact of aerobic exercise on multisensory processing remains unclear. Here we assessed the effects of a single bout of aerobic exercise on commonly utilized tasks that measure audiovisual multisensory processing: response time (RT), simultaneity judgements (SJ), and temporal-order judgements (TOJ), in a pilot study. To our knowledge this is the first effort to investigate the effects of three well-controlled intervention conditions on multisensory processing: resting, completing a cognitively demanding task, and performing aerobic exercise for 20 minutes. Our results indicate that the window of time within which stimuli from different modalities are integrated and perceived as simultaneous (temporal binding window; TBW) is malleable and changes after each intervention condition for both the SJ and TOJ tasks. Specifically, the TBW consistently became narrower post exercise while consistently increasing in width post rest, suggesting that aerobic exercise may improve temporal perception precision via broad neural change rather than targeting the specific networks that subserve either the SJ or TOJ tasks individually. The results from the RT task further support our findings of malleability of the multisensory processing system, as changes in performance, as assessed through cumulative probability models, were observed after each intervention condition. An increase in integration (i.e., greater magnitude of multisensory effect) however, was only found after a single bout of aerobic exercise. Overall, our results indicate that exercise uniquely affects the central nervous system and may broadly affect multisensory processing.