Cross-Sensory Futures: Rewiring Perception in HCI

2026. To appear at ACM CHI 2026.

Oussama Metatla, Min Susan Li, Feng Feng, Cameron Steer, Michael J Proulx, Meike Scheller & Tegan Roberts-Morgan.

Including a wide range of sensory modalities at the user interface has always been a key objective and a challenge of human-computer interaction. Over the years, this challenge has been examined through a range of lenses with unique underlying theoretical grounding and contributions; captured through notions such as media spaces, multimodal interaction and multisensory experiences, and addressed from different perspectives across physiology, psychology and technology. In this workshop, we will bring together researchers and practitioners to explore the potential of "cross-sensory interaction" as a delineated subject of study that builds on and expands our understanding of how sensory modalities can be leveraged in HCI research and practice. We will focus on the unique theoretical, design and engineering opportunities that "cross-sensory interaction" may offer as a sensitizing construct grounded in crossmodal cognition and neuroplasticity, and formulate a roadmap synthesising common challenges and open research questions to help enrich the space of sensory research in HCI.