What a Decade of Experiments Reveals about Factors that Influence the Sense of Presence
Abstract
The sense of presence, "being there," is a real phenomenon. The literature contains many anecdotal accounts of how users have reacted to a virtual scene in instinctual ways that suggest they believe, at least for a short time, that virtual events are real. Yet, much remains unknown. Does a strong sense of presence cause users to engage mental models and cognitive processes that they have already developed in a real environment? Will behavior learned in a virtual-world transfer to a corresponding real scenario? This document reviews what experimental results reveal about technical factors and task characteristics that may influence the sense of presence. For the discussions here, "presence" is loosely defined as the subjective experience of being in a place or environment, even when one is physically situated in another place or environment. "Co-presence," then, is the experience of being with another person (actual or computer generated) in a place or environment such that he has access to that person and, conversely, that person has access to him. This is different from "social presence," which goes a step further to address social psychological ideas of personal interaction and implies some awareness of a collocated person's intelligence and intentions. Factors that may be related to co-presence and social presence have been examined less than those that may influence presence. This report reviews the results of experiments that have examined the sense of presence experienced in virtual environments. The report provides guidance about factors that have a good probability of manipulating presence, gives a feel for the scope of experimentation that has been performed, and facilitates the identification of critical gaps where future research may make the most difference. Over 170 experiments are identified, but the analysis focuses on those experiments that have been replicated (more or less) and on factors that have shown consistent results across studies.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA473402
Entities
People
- Christine Youngblut
Organizations
- Institute for Defense Analyses