top of page

Call for Participation

The Joint Workshop on Perception, Cognition, Comfort, and User Safety (PCCU) is merging the workshops on Perceptual and Cognitive Issues in XR (PERCxR) and the Workshop on Enhancing User Comfort, Health and Safety.

​

The crux of this workshop is to develop a better understanding of the human-centered issues including cognition, perception, and comfort that inform and constrain the design of effective and safe virtual and augmented reality (XR) systems. 

​

As Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are being more widely used in the home and workplace, user comfort, health, and safety are becoming increasingly important. Users need to be able to have confidence in AR/VR devices and content, and that they are comfortable and safe to use for long periods of time. Comfort concerns can lead users to avoid or prematurely decline to use AR/VR, even if the concerns are readily addressed or corrected. 

​

To fulfill comfort, health, and safety needs in XR, a thorough understanding of perceptual and cognitive factors that contribute to theoretical and applied aspects of XR systems is highly needed by both research and industry. Investigations of how perception and cognition may contribute to technology use will allow us to advance technology in such a way that designers and developers can be aware of human capabilities and limitations to make XR application and interfaces more usable, comfortable and safe.

​

This workshop will provide an opportunity for academic and industry researchers to present their latest work and research in progress. We expect researchers to submit early work, such as initial analyses of user studies or experimental visualization techniques, although position papers that comprise several pages and summarize a range of previous experiments or experiences (survey) also fall inside the scope of the workshop. The workshop will also host a discussion identifying important research topics in comfort, health, and safety and how they may be correlated with important issues identified in perception and cognition in XR.

​

The workshop will consist of three sections. First will be rapid fire talks consisting of

presentations based on the paper submissions. The second section will be invited talks regarding recent developments or challenges in both areas of interest.  The final session will be devoted to a discussion of important research issues in comfort, health and safety as well as perception and cognition that may be addressed by tackling both or one area of interest.  The goal will be to produce a summary of the grand challenges that need to be addressed. Participants will first divide into breakout rooms to conduct a World Cafe style session to ideate and distill the key challenges and potential paths to research solutions on the topics that have been identified in previous workshops, but also ideas that are new given the juxtaposition of the areas being covered by merging the two workshops. The outcome of the workshop will be to identify future research that could be conducted across both areas to answer key questions in the field. This set of research topics or roadmap will be summarized on our respective websites for each workshop and we may pursue a journal special issue associated with the joint workshop.

​

Papers should be between 2 and 4 pages in length (excluding references) and the topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Depth and color perception in XR

  • Eye strain in AR

  • Comparisons between AR and VR perceptual and/or safety issues

  • Just noticeable differences, signal thresholds, and biases

  • Issues related to visual search/information processing

  • Situational awareness

  • Studies related to selective, focused or divided attention

  • Cognitive load, mental workload or other cognitive issues related to perception

  • Multisensory issues (sensation, perception & cognition in non-visual AR)

  • Visualization techniques addressing perceptual or cognitive issues

  • View management techniques

  • Novel visual display devices that target specific perceptual issues

  • Validation methodologies, benchmarks and measurement methods, including eye tracking

  • Novel capturing and processing techniques (like HDR) that address perceptual issues

  • Techniques for conducting longitudinal studies

  • Individual differences in perception & cognition in XR

  • Health and safety issues for specific groups (i.e. children, elderly, people with disabilities, specific professionals)

  • Physical or physiological factors concerning health and safety in VR and AR

  • Cybersickness and its relationship to comfort as well as perception

 

Submitted papers will be evaluated in a double-blind reviewing process of the submissions by the committee members.

​

Important Dates

Paper Submission Deadline: Monday, July 31, 2023 (23:59 AoE)

Final Decisions: Monday, August 7, 2023

Camera-ready deadline: Monday, August 21st, 2023 (23:59 AoE)

​

bottom of page