Motion Sickness Test: How Prone Are You?
Answer a few quick questions to estimate your motion-sickness susceptibility and see how you compare to other people. It's free, based on the validated Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (MSSQ), and gives you a drug-free plan to prepare. It's a self-assessment, not a medical diagnosis.
Scoring a completed MSSQ-Short? Use the MSSQ-Short scoring calculator further down this page.
The Dizzout Test
Which motion-sick person are you?
Ten questions. Two minutes. A real score built on the validated MSSQ, and the type your friends will recognize on sight.
No signup ยท nothing leaves your device ยท built for motion-sensitive eyes: nothing here slides or spins
What this test measures
Your result is a relative susceptibility score from 0 to 100, mapped to a band (lower, moderate, or higher likelihood) and an approximate population percentile. It is based on the MSSQ, which uses your history of feeling sick across different kinds of travel, which is the single best predictor of future susceptibility, plus a handful of well-documented risk factors. It estimates how prone you are relative to other people; it does not predict whether you'll get sick on a specific trip.
What causes motion sickness
Motion sickness is a sensory-mismatch problem: your inner ear detects movement while your eyes may be locked on a stationary view. The brain treats the disagreement as a warning sign and triggers nausea. See what motion sickness is and the science for the full mechanism.
Who is most prone (the risk factors)
Susceptibility peaks in childhood (about ages 7 to 12) and declines with age; women report it more than men, and pregnancy can raise it further; migraine and vestibular issues are strongly associated; and it runs in families (roughly 55 to 70% heritable). A strong personal history, especially trouble reading in a moving car, is the biggest single signal. This test turns those factors into your personalized result. For the underlying numbers, see our motion sickness statistics.
Why am I suddenly getting motion sickness?
A new onset can come from certain medications, an ear or sinus infection, a recent concussion, migraine, or hormonal changes including pregnancy. Sudden, persistent, or severe dizziness or vertigo isn't something to self-diagnose, see a doctor.
How this works (methodology)
The travel-history questions follow the MSSQ (Golding 2006), rescaled by the number of travel modes you've actually experienced so non-exposure doesn't skew the score. We add weighted adjusters for reading-in-car intolerance, migraine, family history, childhood sickness, sex/pregnancy, and age, drawing on the CDC Yellow Book and a classical twin study. The MSSQ has moderate predictive validity (about r = 0.45), so your result is a guide, not a guarantee.
A worked example
Here is the scoring in one pass. Say a traveler feels sick often in cars, sometimes on boats, and never on planes, and has not tried rides or VR. That last mode is left out rather than counted as a zero, so the three rated modes set a travel-history score of about 28 out of 50. Now the risk factors: reading in a moving car leaves them a little queasy (6 points), no migraines (0), a parent who gets carsick (8), not a motion-sick child (0), female (5), and age 18 to 29 (4). That is 23 of the 53 possible adjuster points, which scales to about 22 out of 50. The tool adds the exact parts, 27.8 and 21.7, and rounds to 49 out of 100: the moderate band, near the 44th percentile, so more prone than roughly 44 in 100 people. Change one answer and you can watch it move. Raise the boat answer to often and the score climbs; drop the family history to no and it falls. That is the whole engine, and it runs entirely in your browser.
What to do next
Whatever your band, simple preparation helps: face forward, fix your eyes on the horizon, get fresh air, and avoid reading or scrolling while moving. See how to stop motion sickness, try the 3-question remedy finder for a plan matched to your situation, and see the guides for seasickness, car sickness, and VR sickness.
Rather skip the medication?
Dizzout is a drug-free app that plays precisely calibrated audio through any headphones you already own, wired or Bluetooth, with relief in about 90 seconds. It works once symptoms have already started, which is the part most options do not cover. Free to download.
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Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (MSSQ-Short) scoring calculator
The MSSQ-Short is the short form of the Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (Golding 2006). It is for adults answering about their own history. Enter each answer below and the calculator applies the published scoring: the childhood score (MSA), the adult score (MSB), the raw total, and the percentile from the norms table. It runs in your browser.
Cars
Buses or coaches
Trains
Aircraft
Small boats
Ships and large ferries
Playground swings
Playground roundabouts (merry-go-rounds)
Big dippers and funfair rides (roller coasters)
Answer all nine rows in a column to see that section's score.
A 2015 update with 1,711 people found the original norms understate how common high susceptibility is (Lamb and Kwok 2015), so read the percentile as approximate. This is a research score, not a diagnosis. It is separate from the test at the top of this page, which also weighs risk factors such as migraine and age.
How the MSSQ-Short is scored
The questionnaire asks about nine kinds of travel and motion twice: once for childhood, before age 12, and once for roughly the last 10 years. Each answer scores 0 for never felt sick, 1 for rarely, 2 for sometimes and 3 for frequently. An activity you never did scores 0 but is also counted, so not having done it does not pull your score down.
For each section, multiply the total by 9 and divide by 9 minus the number of activities never done. That gives the childhood score (MSA) and the adult score (MSB). Add them for the raw score, from 0 to 54. If every activity in a section is marked as never done, that section cannot be scored. In its 2006 validation the MSSQ-Short showed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.87 and test-retest reliability of about 0.9.
| Percentile | Before age 12 (A) | Last 10 years (B) | Total (A + B) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10th | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.8 |
| 20th | 2.0 | 1.0 | 3.0 |
| 30th | 4.0 | 1.3 | 7.0 |
| 40th | 5.6 | 2.6 | 9.0 |
| 50th | 7.0 | 3.7 | 11.3 |
| 60th | 9.0 | 6.0 | 14.1 |
| 70th | 11.0 | 7.0 | 17.9 |
| 80th | 13.0 | 9.0 | 21.6 |
| 90th | 16.0 | 12.0 | 25.9 |
| 95th | 20.0 | 15.0 | 30.4 |
| Mean | 7.75 | 5.11 | 12.90 |
Frequently asked questions
Am I prone to motion sickness?
It depends mostly on your past reactions to travel plus a few risk factors (migraine, family history, being a motion-sick child, reading in cars, sex and age). This test combines them into a relative susceptibility score based on the validated Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (MSSQ).
Why do I get motion sickness?
Motion sickness comes from a sensory mismatch: your inner ear senses motion while your eyes may see a still view (a phone, a book, a cabin wall). The brain reads the conflict as a warning and triggers nausea.
Is motion sickness genetic?
Largely, yes. Twin studies estimate susceptibility is roughly 55 to 70% heritable, and a large genome-wide study in a 23andMe cohort identified dozens of associated genetic variants, which is why it often runs in families.
Can motion sickness go away, will I outgrow it?
Susceptibility peaks in childhood (around ages 7 to 12) and tends to decline through adulthood and older age as people habituate. Many adults are far less affected than they were as children, though some stay sensitive.
Why am I suddenly getting motion sickness?
New triggers can raise sensitivity: certain medications, an ear or sinus infection, a recent concussion, migraine, or hormonal changes including pregnancy. Persistent or unexplained dizziness should be checked by a doctor.
Who is most likely to get motion sickness?
Children aged about 2 to 12, women (especially during pregnancy), people with migraine or vestibular issues, and anyone with a family history or a strong personal history of travel sickness.
How accurate is this test, and what is the MSSQ?
The travel-history questions are based on the MSSQ (Golding 2006), a validated research instrument. It has moderate predictive validity (about r = 0.45), so treat the result as a relative guide, not a guarantee or a diagnosis.
Will I get seasick on a cruise, or sick in VR?
If your boat or rides/VR answers were high, you're more likely to feel it in those settings. See our cruise guide and VR sickness guide to prepare.
How do you score the MSSQ-Short?
Score each of the nine activities from 0 to 3, once for childhood before age 12 and once for the last 10 years. For each section, multiply the total by 9 and divide by 9 minus the number of activities never done. Add the two section scores for a raw score from 0 to 54, then read the percentile from the norms table in Golding (2006). The calculator on this page does all of this for you.
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<p>Take the <a href="https://dizzout.com/motion-sickness-test">motion sickness test</a> by Dizzout, scored on the validated MSSQ.</p>
Sources
- Golding JF (2006)
Predicting individual differences in motion sickness susceptibility by questionnaire (the MSSQ)
Personality and Individual Differences
- Golding JF (1998)
Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire revised, and its relationship to other forms of sickness
Brain Research Bulletin
- Lamb & Kwok (2015)
Updated MSSQ-Short norms (the original norms underrepresent highly susceptible people)
Human Factors
- CDC Yellow Book 2026
Motion Sickness: travel-medicine guidance and risk factors
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Takov & Tadi (2023)
Motion Sickness: clinical overview
StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf
- Reavley et al. (2006)
Genetic influences on motion sickness susceptibility in adult women: a classical twin study
Aviation, Space & Environmental Medicine ยท PMID 17086768
- Hromatka et al. (2015)
Genetic variants associated with motion sickness (genome-wide association study, 23andMe cohort; ~35 loci)
Human Molecular Genetics
- Keshavarz & Golding (2021 to 2023)
The Visually Induced Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (VIMSSQ)
Applied Ergonomics
This self-assessment is for educational purposes only. It estimates relative susceptibility based on the validated MSSQ and known risk factors. It is not a medical diagnosis and not medical advice. The underlying questionnaire has only moderate predictive validity, so treat your result as a guide. Talk to a doctor about any medical decisions, persistent or severe dizziness or vertigo, or anything involving children or pregnancy.