On the Usage of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire for Virtual Reality Research
Abstract
Originally developed for military flight simulators in the 1990s, the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) has been widely adopted to quantify sickness elicited by modern virtual reality systems. We illustrate the inherent challenges of applying the SSQ in virtual reality research and highlight large differences that can be found in related work. Based on our observations, we conclude by providing suggestions on how to improve the expressiveness of SSQ results in future studies and encourage researchers to consider simpler measurement methods if their research questions allow.
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This study followed more recent recommendations advocating prior evaluation of cybersickness to identify individual susceptibility and enhance intervention safety.
“this study followed more recent recommendations that advocate for its prior evaluation, as proposed in [31], in order to identify individual susceptibility and enhance the intervention's safety.”
From Immersive Virtual Reality in Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Youth with Eating Disorders: A Pilot Study in a Rural Context (2025) · cites this paper as [31]
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The simulator sickness questionnaire, and the erroneous zero baseline assumption
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- Authors
- Bimberg, P., Weissker, T., & Kulik, A.
- Affiliations
- Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (DE)
- Venue
- 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2020-03
- Pages
- 464-467
- OpenAlex
- W3025077393
- Cited by
- 226
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 36 · 2025: 48 · 2024: 62 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 14.61
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Simulation and Modeling Applications
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Media Technology › Advanced Optical Imaging Technologies
- Keywords
- Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, simulator sickness, virtual reality, measurement methods, virtual reality research
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