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.