u     A brief explanation of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ)

Simulator Sickness Questionnaire was developed by Kennedy and his colleagues in 1993 (Kennedy et al., 1993). They used over 1000 sets of previous data and through some analysis, they came up with a list of 27 symptoms which are commonly experienced by users of virtual reality systems. Each item is rated with the scale from none, slight, moderate to severe. Through some calculations, four representative scores can be found (Appendix B). Nausea-related subscore (N), Oculomotor-related subscore (O), Disorientation-related subscore (D) are the scores for the symptoms for the specific aspects. Total Score (TS) is the score representing the overall severity of cybersickness experienced by the users of virtual reality systems. Simulator Sickness Questionnaire is a widely applied measurement tool in research studying simulator sickness and cybersickness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

None = 0

Slight = 1

Moderate = 2

Severe = 3

 

Weights for Symptoms

Symptoms

Nausea

Oculomotor

Disorientation

 

General discomfort

1

1

 

Fatigue

 

1

 

Headache

 

1

 

Eye strain

 

1

 

Difficulty focusing

 

1

1

Increased salivation

1

 

 

Sweating

1

 

 

Nausea

1

 

1

Difficulty concentrating

1

1

 

Fullness of head

 

 

1

Blurred vision

 

1

1

Dizzy (eyes open)

 

 

1

Dizzy (eyes closed)

 

 

1

Vertigo

 

 

1

Stomach awareness

1

 

 

Burping

1

 

 

 

Total*

[1]

[2]

[3]

 

Score

Nausea = [1] ´ 9.54

Oculomotor = [2] ´ 7.58

Disorientation = [3] ´ 13.92

 

Total Score = ([1] + [2] + [3]) *3.74

 

* Total is the sum obtained by adding the symptoms scores. Omitted scores are zero