This paper makes the case that a powerful new discipline, which we term perception engineering, is steadily emerging. It follows from a progression of ideas that involve creating illusions, from historical paintings and film, to video games and virtual reality in modern times. Rather than creating physical artifacts such as bridges, airplanes, or computers, perception engineers create illusory perceptual experiences. The scope is defined over any agent that interacts with the physical world, including both biological organisms (humans, animals) and engineered systems (robots, autonomous systems). The key idea is that an agent, called a producer, alters the environment with the intent to alter the perceptual experience of another agent, called a receiver. Most importantly, the paper introduces a precise mathematical formulation of this process, based on the von Neumann-Morgenstern notion of information, to help scope and define the discipline. It is then applied to the cases of engineered and biological agents with discussion of its implications on existing fields such as virtual reality, robotics, and even social media. Finally, open challenges and opportunities for involvement are identified.

翻译：本文论证了一个强大的新兴学科——我们称之为感知工程——正在稳步形成。它源于一系列涉及创造幻象的思想演进，从历史上的绘画与电影，到现代电子游戏与虚拟现实。感知工程师并非创造桥梁、飞机或计算机等物理制品，而是构建虚幻的感知体验。该学科的研究范围涵盖所有与物理世界交互的智能体，包括生物有机体（人类、动物）和工程系统（机器人、自主系统）。其核心思想是：一个被称为"生产者"的智能体通过改变环境，意图改变另一个被称为"接收者"的智能体的感知体验。最重要的是，本文基于冯·诺依曼-摩根斯坦信息论，引入该过程的精确数学表述，以帮助界定该学科的范围与定义。随后将该理论应用于工程系统与生物智能体的案例，并探讨其对虚拟现实、机器人技术乃至社交媒体等现有领域的影响。最后，本文指出了待解决的开放性挑战及可参与的机遇。