The ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (ACM SAP) provides an intimate forum for researchers who combine knowledge, methods, and insights from perception research and computer science disciplines. This includes such disciplines as cognitive psychology, perceptual psychology, psychophysics, behavior-analysis, and neuroscience on the perceptual side and computer graphics, computer vision, visualization, virtual reality and human-computer interfaces on the visual computing side.

The interdisciplinary focus of this conference acknowledges that the various scientific disciplines in perception research and computer science research use different but complementary methods to address fundamentally similar questions. As such, combinations of knowledge, methods, and/or insights from the different fields can help to advance all of the applied perception fields.

ACM SAP 2026 will be held in Rennes, France on the 26th and 27th of August, 2026. SAP welcomes original unpublished research related to all topics relevant to both perception and computer science. This research can be submitted as a long paper of up to 8 pages or as a short paper of up to 4 pages. In all cases the page limit is EXCLUSIVE of the pages devoted to bibliographic references and appendices.

Under an agreement with the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP) and the ACM Publications Board, the strongest accepted papers will be offered publication as full papers in the ACM journal TAP (instead of appearing in the proceedings). Authors of such special issue papers must agree to present the paper at ACM SAP. As has always been the case, authors of regular ACM SAP papers can still submit to TAP regular issues with appropriate additions. Papers that have been recommended for acceptance in the ACM TAP journal will undergo a second review cycle, during which the authors will revise the paper to address reviewer concerns.

Topics of interest

SAP welcomes submissions related to topics relevant to both perception and computer science summarized as follows.

Application of perceptual research to any area of computer science, including but not limited to:

modeling, rendering, animation
virtual environments, characters, embodied conversational agents, avatars
processing information from artificial sensors
representation of data, communication of data, interaction with data

Applications of computer science to any area of perception, including but not limited to:

perceptually motivated algorithms (e.g. foveated rendering, image and video compression, tone mapping)
perceptual topics in displays (luminance, contrast, depth perception, frame rate)
modeling natural perceptual systems
simulating natural perceptual systems

Emerging topics such as:

animal perception
privacy and security
novel sensors
studies that combine perception and computing research toward applications to healthcare, deep space exploration, cultural and ecological preservation