Abstract
Visually induced motion sickness (VIMS) remains a persistent barrier to deep user engagement in virtual reality (VR). While sensory conflict theory provides a well-established physiological account, it does not fully address the cognitive-resource demands involved in sustaining body ownership when users rely heavily on visual information under conditions of visual–vestibular mismatch and limited multisensory correspondence in VR. Drawing on embodied cognition theory, this paper proposes the Body Ownership Destabilization Hypothesis (BODH), which explains VIMS as a condition in which several concurrent demands compete for limited cognitive resources needed to maintain stable body ownership in VR. Specifically, limited haptic feedback and mismatches among visual, proprioceptive, and vestibular cues may increase users’ reliance on vision to maintain body ownership; detail-dense high-fidelity visual design may increase visual-environmental load, placing sustained demands on limited processing resources; and unstable prediction–feedback correspondence may increase sensorimotor recalibration demands. Together, these concurrent demands may weaken embodied coupling, make body ownership more vulnerable to destabilization, and thereby increase users’ susceptibility to VIMS. Based on this analysis, the paper argues that VR visual design should shift from “physical fidelity” to “perceptual plausibility,” proposing three design strategies: visual compensation, visual simplification (inspired by the Chinese aesthetic principle of
liubai
), and predictive alignment. As a theoretical study, this work offers a complementary cognitive-resource-regulation framework for understanding VIMS and informing future design interventions, and outlines testable directions for future empirical validation and design practice.