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doi: 10.1162/105474603322391587pmid: N/A
I have lived in San Francisco while working as a full-time virtual faculty member for Michigan State University for nearly six years. Unlike most humans, I spend a larger proportion of every day as a virtual person than as a physical person. This article is adapted from a keynote speech I delivered at the Fourth International Workshop on Presence in Philadelphia in May of 2001. I use a personal narrative style to explore issues and to question some of the research community's prevailing assumptions about presence. Lombard and Ditton's (1997) frequently cited conceptualization defines presence as a “perceptual illusion of nonmediation” that occurs “when a person fails to perceive or acknowledge the existence of a medium in his/her communication environment and responds as he/she would if the medium were not there.” The underlying assumption is that, in the absence of technology, everyone experiences continuous presence at a constant intensity throughout their lives. Instead, this article suggests that presence is not a constant of everyday nonmediated experience. Careful consideration of unmediated (real) presence might help the conceptualization and study of mediated presence.
doi: 10.1162/105474603322391587pmid: N/A
I have lived in San Francisco while working as a full-time virtual faculty member for Michigan State University for nearly six years. Unlike most humans, I spend a larger proportion of every day as a virtual person than as a physical person. This article is adapted from a keynote speech I delivered at the Fourth International Workshop on Presence in Philadelphia in May of 2001. I use a personal narrative style to explore issues and to question some of the research community's prevailing assumptions about presence. Lombard and Ditton's (1997) frequently cited conceptualization defines presence as a “perceptual illusion of nonmediation” that occurs “when a person fails to perceive or acknowledge the existence of a medium in his/her communication environment and responds as he/she would if the medium were not there.” The underlying assumption is that, in the absence of technology, everyone experiences continuous presence at a constant intensity throughout their lives. Instead, this article suggests that presence is not a constant of everyday nonmediated experience. Careful consideration of unmediated (real) presence might help the conceptualization and study of mediated presence.
Klimmt, Christoph; Vorderer, Peter
doi: 10.1162/105474603322391596pmid: N/A
Contemporary theoretical explications of presence experiences can be advanced and completed by integrating theoretical frameworks from media psychology. This article briefly presents concepts related to media entertainment that have been elaborated and/or applied by media psychologists and that exhibit considerable overlaps with the explication of presence. Specifically, the concept of involvement (Vorderer, 1992), affective disposition theory (Zillmann, 1996), simulation theory (Oatley, 1994), and the psychological theory of play (Oerter, 1999) are introduced. For each framework, connection points to the theoretical conceptualization of presence are pointed out. The article illuminates new opportunities for interdisciplinary cooperation in advancing our understanding of presence.
Klimmt, Christoph; Vorderer, Peter
doi: 10.1162/105474603322391596pmid: N/A
Contemporary theoretical explications of presence experiences can be advanced and completed by integrating theoretical frameworks from media psychology. This article briefly presents concepts related to media entertainment that have been elaborated and/or applied by media psychologists and that exhibit considerable overlaps with the explication of presence. Specifically, the concept of involvement (Vorderer, 1992), affective disposition theory (Zillmann, 1996), simulation theory (Oatley, 1994), and the psychological theory of play (Oerter, 1999) are introduced. For each framework, connection points to the theoretical conceptualization of presence are pointed out. The article illuminates new opportunities for interdisciplinary cooperation in advancing our understanding of presence.
Kort, Yvonne A. W. de; IJsselsteijn, Wijnand A.; Kooijman, Jolien; Schuurmans, Yvon
doi: 10.1162/105474603322391604pmid: N/A
Virtual environments have the potential to become important new research tools in environment behavior research. They could even become the future (virtual) laboratories, if reactions of people to virtual environments are similar to those in real environments. The present study is an exploration of the comparability of research findings in real and virtual environments. In the study, 101 participants explored an identical space, either in reality or in a computer-simulated environment. Additionally, the presence of plants in the space was manipulated, resulting in a 2 (environment)× 2 (plants) between-subjects design. Employing a broad set of measurements, we found mixed results. Performances on size estimations and a cognitive mapping task were significantly better in the real environment. Factor analyses of bipolar adjectives indicated that, although four dimensions were similar for both environments, a fifth dimension of environmental assessment—termed arousal —was absent in the virtual environment. In addition, we found significant differences on the scores of four of the scales. However, no significant interactions appeared between environment and plants. Experience of and behavior in virtual environments have similarities to that in real environments, but there are important differences as well. We conclude that this is not only a necessary, but also a very interesting research subject for environmental psychology.
Kort, Yvonne A. W. de; IJsselsteijn, Wijnand A.; Kooijman, Jolien; Schuurmans, Yvon
doi: 10.1162/105474603322391604pmid: N/A
Virtual environments have the potential to become important new research tools in environment behavior research. They could even become the future (virtual) laboratories, if reactions of people to virtual environments are similar to those in real environments. The present study is an exploration of the comparability of research findings in real and virtual environments. In the study, 101 participants explored an identical space, either in reality or in a computer-simulated environment. Additionally, the presence of plants in the space was manipulated, resulting in a 2 (environment)× 2 (plants) between-subjects design. Employing a broad set of measurements, we found mixed results. Performances on size estimations and a cognitive mapping task were significantly better in the real environment. Factor analyses of bipolar adjectives indicated that, although four dimensions were similar for both environments, a fifth dimension of environmental assessment—termedarousal—was absent in the virtual environment. In addition, we found significant differences on the scores of four of the scales. However, no significant interactions appeared between environment and plants. Experience of and behavior in virtual environments have similarities to that in real environments, but there are important differences as well. We conclude that this is not only a necessary, but also a very interesting research subject for environmental psychology.
Shim, Wooyoung; Kim, Gerard Jounghyun
doi: 10.1162/105474603322391613pmid: N/A
Although much research work has focused on identifying different factors that affect presence, it is still not clear how to effectively combine these results to create a content with high presence with respect to a given hardware set-up and limited computing resources. This paper proposes a concept of level of presence (LOP) in which we attempt to select a set of presence elements and their levels to maximize their “contribution” toward the overall presence subject to system resources. Such an optimization scheme would require a reasonable characterization of the computational costs and a sufficient knowledge of the relative and collective merits of various presence elements. We made an attempt to apply the LOP concept to VR system design for a particular application, a virtual fish tank. The purpose of this study is to assess the usefulness of the LOP concept and introduce science into content creation. We selected two important presence elements—the field of view (FOV) and the simulation level of detail (SLOD)—and quantified their costs in terms of the required computation time. Next, we ran a simple experiment to quantify the relative benefits of those two presence factors. For this application, it was found that providing more lifelike simulation, for instance, incurred needlessly expensive computations compared to the amount of increased benefits. Based on the result, the virtual fish tank was configured with the appropriate FOV and SLOD for maximum presence under different conditions, such as the preferred frame rate and total number of objects. We discuss the merits of such a presence-driven VR system development approach.
Shim, Wooyoung; Kim, Gerard Jounghyun
doi: 10.1162/105474603322391613pmid: N/A
Although much research work has focused on identifying different factors that affect presence, it is still not clear how to effectively combine these results to create a content with high presence with respect to a given hardware set-up and limited computing resources. This paper proposes a concept of level of presence (LOP) in which we attempt to select a set of presence elements and their levels to maximize their “contribution” toward the overall presence subject to system resources. Such an optimization scheme would require a reasonable characterization of the computational costs and a sufficient knowledge of the relative and collective merits of various presence elements. We made an attempt to apply the LOP concept to VR system design for a particular application, a virtual fish tank. The purpose of this study is to assess the usefulness of the LOP concept and introduce science into content creation. We selected two important presence elements—the field of view (FOV) and the simulation level of detail (SLOD)—and quantified their costs in terms of the required computation time. Next, we ran a simple experiment to quantify the relative benefits of those two presence factors. For this application, it was found that providing more lifelike simulation, for instance, incurred needlessly expensive computations compared to the amount of increased benefits. Based on the result, the virtual fish tank was configured with the appropriate FOV and SLOD for maximum presence under different conditions, such as the preferred frame rate and total number of objects. We discuss the merits of such a presence-driven VR system development approach.
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