Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Research on Presence in Virtual Reality: A Survey
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paper_title: A Framework for Immersive Virtual Environments (FIVE): Speculations on the Role of Presence in Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper reviews the concepts of immersion and presence in virtual environments VEs. We propose that the degree of immersion can be objectively assessed as the characteristics of a technology, and has dimensions such as the extent to which a display system can deliver an inclusive, extensive, surrounding, and vivid illusion of virtual environment to a participant. Other dimensions of immersion are concerned with the extent of body matching, and the extent to which there is a self-contained plot in which the participant can act and in which there is an autonomous response. Presence is a state of consciousness that may be concomitant with immersion, and is related to a sense of being in a place. Presence governs aspects of autonomie responses and higher-level behaviors of a participant in a VE. The paper considers single and multiparticipant shared environments, and draws on the experience of ComputerSupported Cooperative Working CSCW research as a guide to understanding presence in shared environments. The paper finally outlines the aims of the FIVE Working Group, and the 1995 FIVE Conference in London, UK.
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paper_title: A Virtual Presence Counter

paper_content:

This paper describes a new measure for presence in immersive virtual environments (VEs) that is based on data that can be unobtrusively obtained during the course of a VE experience. At different times during an experience, a participant will occasionally switch between interpreting the totality of sensory inputs as forming the VE or the real world. The number of transitions from virtual to real is counted, and, using some simplifying assumptions, a probabilistic Markov chain model can be constructed to model these transitions. This model can be used to estimate the equilibrium probability of being “present” in the VE. This technique was applied in the context of an experiment to assess the relationship between presence and body movement in an immersive VE. The movement was that required by subjects to reach out and touch successive pieces on a three-dimensional chess board. The experiment included twenty subjects, ten of whom had to reach out to touch the chess pieces (the active group) and ten of whom only had to click a handheld mouse button (the control group). The results revealed a significant positive association in the active group between body movement and presence. The results lend support to interaction paradigms that are based on maximizing the match between sensory data and proprioception.
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paper_title: Embodied Presence in Virtual Environments

paper_content:

Presence, the sense of being in a virtual environment (VE), is analysed in an embodied cognition framework. We propose that VEs are mentally represented as meshed sets of patterns of actions and that presence is experienced when these actions include the perceived possibility to navigate and move the own body in the VE. A factor analyses of survey data shows 3 different presence components: spatial presence, involvement, and judgement of realness. A path analysis shows that spatial presence is mostly determined by sources of meshed patterns of actions: interaction with the VE, understanding of dynamics, and perception of dramatic meaning.
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paper_title: Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments: A Presence Questionnaire

paper_content:

The effectiveness of virtual environments (VEs) has often been linked to the sense of presence reported by users of those VEs. (Presence is defined as the subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when one is physically situated in another.) We believe that presence is a normal awareness phenomenon that requires directed attention and is based in the interaction between sensory stimulation, environmental factors that encourage involvement and enable immersion, and internal tendencies to become involved. Factors believed to underlie presence were described in the premier issue of Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. We used these factors and others as the basis for a presence questionnaire (PQ) to measure presence in VEs. In addition we developed an immersive tendencies questionnaire (ITQ) to measure differences in the tendencies of individuals to experience presence. These questionnaires are being used to evaluate relationships among reported presence and other research variables. Combined results from four experiments lead to the following conclusions: ::: the PQ and ITQ are internally consistent measures with high reliability; ::: there is a weak but consistent positive relation between presence and task performance in VEs; ::: individual tendencies as measured by the ITQ predict presence as measured by the PQ; and ::: individuals who report more simulator sickness symptoms in VE report less presence than those who report fewer symptoms.
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paper_title: Depth of Presence in Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper describes a study to assess the influence of a variety of factors on reported level of presence in immersive virtual environments. It introduces the idea of “stacking depth,” that is, where a participant can simulate the process of entering the virtual environment while already in such an environment, which can be repeated to several levels of depth. An experimental study including 24 subjects was carried out. Half of the subjects were transported between environments by using virtual head-mounted displays, and the other half by going through doors. Three other binary factors were whether or not gravity operated, whether or not the subject experienced a virtual precipice, and whether or not the subject was followed around by a virtual actor. Visual, auditory, and kinesthetic representation systems and egocentric/exocentric perceptual positions were assessed by a preexperiment questionnaire. Presence was assessed by the subjects as their sense of “being there,” the extent to which they experienced the virtual environments as more the presenting reality than the real world in which the experiment was taking place, and the extent to which the subject experienced the virtual environments as places visited rather than images seen. A logistic regression analysis revealed that subjective reporting of presence was significantly positively associated with visual and kinesthetic representation systems, and negatively with the auditory system. This was not surprising since the virtual reality system used was primarily visual. The analysis also showed a significant and positive association with stacking level depth for those who were transported between environments by using the virtual HMD, and a negative association for those who were transported through doors. Finally, four of the subjects moved their real left arm to match movement of the left arm of the virtual body displayed by the system. These four scored significantly higher on the kinesthetic representation system than the remainder of the subjects.
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paper_title: Real Presence: How Different Ontologies Generate Different Criteria for Presence, Telepresence, and Virtual Presence

paper_content:

This article claims that the meaning of presence is closely linked to the concept we have of reality, i.e., to the ontology that we more or less explicitly adopt. Different ontological stances support different criteria for presence, telepresence, and virtual presence. We propose a cultural conception of presence that challenges the current idea that experiencing a real or simulated environment deals essentially with perceiving its “objective” physical features. We reject commonsense ingenuous realism and its dualism opposing external reality and internal ideas. In our perspective, presence in an environment, real or simulated, means that individuals can perceive themselves, objects, and other people not only as situated in an external space but also as immersed in a sociocultural web connecting objects, people, and their interactions. This cultural web---structured by artifacts both physical (e.g., the physical components of the computer networks) and ideal (e.g., the social norms that shape the organizational use of the computer networks)---makes possible communication and cooperation among different social actors by granting them a common reference grid. Environments, real and virtual, are not private recesses but public places for meaningful social interaction mediated by artifacts. Experiencing presence in a social environment such as a shared virtual office requires more than the reproduction of the physical features of external reality; it requires awareness of the cultural web that makes meaningful---and therefore visible---both people and objects populating the environment.
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paper_title: The Reality of Experience: Gibson's Way

paper_content:

This paper considers some first principles that might provide a basis for an objective science of experience (presence or immersion). Dimensions that are considered include classical Newtonian measures of the distal stimulus, changes in neural mechanisms reflecting the proximal stimulus, information theoretic measures of the statistical properties of events, and functional properties related to intentions and abilities. Gibson's ecological framework is suggested as a promising functional approach for defining the reality of experience in relation to the problem of designing virtual environments. This approach emphasizes the tight coordination between perception and action and fixes the measurement coordinate system relative to the capacity for action.
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paper_title: Leadership and collaboration in shared virtual environments

paper_content:

We present an experiment that investigates the behaviour of small groups of participants in a wide-area distributed collaborative virtual environment (CVE). This is the third and largest study in a series of experiments that have examined trios of participants carrying out a highly collaborative puzzle-solving task. The results reproducing those of earlier studies suggest a positive relationship between place-presence and co-presence, between co-presence and group accord, with evidence supporting the notion that immersion confers leadership advantage.
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paper_title: Telepresence via Television: Two Dimensions of Telepresence May Have Different Connections to Memory and Persuasion.

paper_content:

To be truly useful for media theory, the concept of presence should be applicable to all forms of virtual environments including those of traditional media like television and traditional content such as advertising. This study reports the results of an experiment on the effects of the visual angle of the display (sensory saturation) and room illumination (sensory suppression) on the sensation of telepresence during normal television viewing. A self-report measure of presence yielded two factors. Using [Gerrig's (1993)] terminology for the sense of being transported to a mediated environments, we labeled the two factors “arrival,” for the feeling of being there in the virtual environment, and “departure,” for the feeling of not being there in the in physical environment. It appears that being in the virtual environment is not equivalent to not being in the physical environment. A path analysis found that these two factors have very different relationships to viewer memory for the experience and for attitude change (i.e., buying intention and confidence in product decision). We theorize that the departure factor may be measuring the feeling that the medium has disappeared and may constitute a deeper absorption into the virtual environment. The study did not find evidence that visual angle and room illumination affected the sensation of telepresence
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paper_title: Presence of Mind:A Reaction to Thomas Sheridan's Further Musings on the Psychophysics of Presence

paper_content:

An operators' sense of remote presence during teleoperation or use of virtual environment interfaces is analyzed as to what characteristics it should have to qualify it as an explanatory scientific construct. But the implicit goal of designing virtual environment interfaces to maximize presence is itself questioned in a second section in which examples of human-machine interfaces beneficially designed to avoid a strong sense of egocentric presence are cited. In conclusion, it is argued that the design of a teleoperation or virtual environment system should generally focus on the efficient communication of causal interaction. In this view the sense of presence, that is of actually being at the simulated or remote workplace, is an epiphenomena of secondary importance for design.
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paper_title: Using Behavioral Realism to Estimate Presence: A Study of the Utility of Postural Responses to Motion Stimuli

paper_content:

We recently reported that direct subjective ratings of the sense of presence are potentially unstable and can be biased by previous judgments of the same stimuli (Freeman et al., 1999). Objective measures of the behavioral realism elicited by a display offer an alternative to subjective ratings. Behavioral measures and presence are linked by the premise that, when observers experience a mediated environment (VE or broadcast) that makes them feel present, they will respond to stimuli within the environment as they would to stimuli in the real world. The experiment presented here measured postural responses to a video sequence filmed from the hood of a car traversing a rally track, using stereoscopic and monoscopic presentation. Results demonstrated a positive effect of stereoscopic presentation on the magnitude of postural responses elicited. Posttest subjective ratings of presence, vection, and involvement were also higher for stereoscopically presented stimuli. The postural and subjective measures were not significantly correlated, indicating that nonproprioceptive postural responses are unlikely to provide accurate estimates of presence. Such postural responses may prove useful for the evaluation of displays for specific applications and in the corroboration of group subjective ratings of presence, but cannot be taken in place of subjective ratings.
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paper_title: Measuring the Sense of Presence and its Relations to Fear of Heights in Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This article describes a study in which a genuine effect of presence--the development of fear of virtual stimuli--was provoked. Using a self-report questionnaire, the sense of presence within this situation was measured. It was shown that fear increased with higher presence. The method, which involved 37 participants, was tested and validated with user tests at the Bauhaus University. A growing body of research in human-computer interface design for virtual environments (VE) concentrates on the problem of how to involve the user in the VE. This effect, usually called immersion or the sense of presence, has been the subject of much research activity. This research focuses on the influence of technical and technological parameters on the sense of presence. However, little work has been done on the effects of experienced sense of presence. One field in which a sense of presence is necessary for the successful application of VEs is the treatment of acrophobic patients. Our goals are to (a) create a theory-bas...
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paper_title: Virtual reality therapy: an effective treatment for phobias.

paper_content:

Behavioral therapy techniques for treating phobias often includes graded exposure of the patient to anxiety-producing stimuli (Systematic Desensitization). However, in utilizing systematic desensitization, research reviews demonstrate that many patients appear to have difficulty in applying imaginative techniques. This chapter describes the Virtual Reality Therapy (VRT), a new therapeutical approach that can be used to overcome some of the difficulties inherent in the traditional treatment of phobias. VRT, like current imaginal and in vivo modalities, can generate stimuli that could be utilized in desensitization therapy. Like systematic desensitization therapy, VRT can provide stimuli for patients who have difficulty in imagining scenes and/or are too phobic to experience real situations. As far as we know, the idea of using virtual reality technology to combat psychological disorders was first conceived within the Human-Computer Interaction Group at Clark Atlanta University in November 1992. Since then, we have successfully conducted the first known pilot experiments in the use of virtual reality technologies in the treatment of specific phobias: fear of flying, fear of heights, fear of being in certain situations (such as a dark barn, an enclosed bridge over a river, and in the presence of an animal [a black cat] in a dark room), and fear of public speaking. The results of these experiments are described.
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paper_title: The virtual treadmill: a naturalistic metaphor for navigation in immersive virtual environments

paper_content:

This paper describes a metaphor that allows people to move around an immersive virtual environment by “walking in place”. Positional data of participants’ head movements are obtained from a tracking sensor on a head-mounted display during a training session, where they alternate between walking in place and a range of other activities. The data is fed to a neural net pattern recogniser that learns to recognise the person’s walking in place behaviour. This is used in a virtual reality system to allow people to move through the virtual environment by simulating the kinds of kinesthetic actions and sensory perceptions involved in walking. An experiment was carried out to compare this method of navigation with the familiar alternative that involves using a hand-held pointing device, such as a 3D mouse. The experiment suggests that the walking in place method may enhance the participant’s sense of presence, but that it is not advantageous with respect to the efficiency of navigation.
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paper_title: Evaluating the importance of multi-sensory input on memory and the sense of presence in virtual environments

paper_content:

322 subjects participated in an experimental study to investigate the effects of tactile, olfactory, audio and visual sensory cues on a participant's sense of presence in a virtual environment and on their memory for the environment and the objects in that environment. Results strongly indicate that increasing the modalities of sensory input in a virtual environment can increase both the sense of presence and memory for objects in the environment. In particular, the addition of tactile, olfactory and auditory cues to a virtual environment increased the user's sense of presence and memory of the environment. Surprisingly, increasing the level of visual detail did not result in an increase in the user's sense of presence or memory of the environment.
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paper_title: Presence in Text-Based Networked Virtual Environments or MUDS

paper_content:

A text-based networked virtual environment represents to a user a system of rooms joined by exits and entrances. When navigating this system of rooms, a user can communicate in real time with other connected users occupying the same room. Hence, these virtual environments are aptly suited for networked conferencing and teaching. Anecdotal information suggested that some people feel a sense of “being there” or presence when connected to one of these environments. To determine how many people feel this sense of presence, we surveyed 207 people from 6 different groups of users of text-based networked virtual environments. The results indicated that 69% of these subjects felt a sense of presence. Experiments with people in text-based networked virtual environments may be helpful in understanding the contribution to presence by social interaction in other virtual environments.
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paper_title: The Influence of Dynamic Shadows on Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper describes an experiment where the effect of dynamic shadows in an immersive virtual environment is measured with respect to spatial perception and presence. Eight subjects were given tasks to do in a virtual environment. Each subject carried out five experimental trials, and the extent of dynamic shadow phenomena varied between the trials. Two measurements of presence were used — a subjective one based on a questionnaire, and a more objective behavioural measure. The experiment was inconclusive with respect to the effect of shadows on depth perception. However, the experiment suggests that for visually dominant subjects, the greater the extent of shadow phenomena in the virtual environment, the greater the sense of presence.
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paper_title: Measuring Presence: A Response to the Witmer and Singer Presence Questionnaire

paper_content:

Witmer and Singer recently published a questionnaire for eliciting presence in virtual environments together with a questionnaire for measuring a person’s immersive tendencies (Witmer & Singer, 1998). The authors mentioned that they did not agree with my notion of immersion: ‘Though the VE equipment is instrumental in enabling immersion, we do not agree with Slater’s view that immersion is an objective description of the VE technology’. On first reading I was happy to take this as simply a difference of terminology which is what it is. I had defined the term immersion to mean the extent to which the actual system delivers a surrounding environment, one which shuts out sensations from the ‘real world’, which accommodates many sensory modalities, has rich representational capability, and so on (described, for example, in Slater & Wilbur, 1997). These are obviously measurable aspects of a VE system. For example, given two VE systems, and other things being equal, if one allows the participant to turn their head in any direction at all and still receive visual information only from within the VE then this is called (in my definition) a more ‘immersive’ system than one where the participant can only see VE visual signals along one fixed direction. Given two systems, if one has a larger field of view than the other, then the first is (in my definition) more immersive than the second. As a last example, if one generates shadows in realtime and the other does not, then again, the first is called (by me) more immersive. These are examples of what I mean by more or less ‘immersion’. Clearly for all of these types of things metrics can be established which are descriptions of the system, and not descriptions of people’s responses to the system. Witmer and Singer, however, define immersion as the person’s response to the VE system. This difference in terminology is unfortunate, but not a matter of any great concern. In order to
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paper_title: Presence within Virtual Environments as a Function of Visual Display Parameters

paper_content:

This paper reports the results of three studies, each of which investigated the sense of presence within virtual environments as a function of visual display parameters. These factors included the presence or absence of head tracking, the presence or absence of stereoscopic cues, and the geometric field of view used to create the visual image projected on the visual display. In each study, subjects navigated a virtual environment and completed a questionnaire designed to ascertain the level of presence experienced by the participant within the virtual world. Specifically, two aspects of presence were evaluated: 1 the sense of “being there” and 2 the fidelity of the interaction between the virtual environment participant and the virtual world. Not surprisingly, the results of the first and second study indicated that the reported level of presence was significantly higher when head tracking and stereoscopic cues were provided. The results from the third study showed that the geometric field of view used to design the visual display highly influenced the reported level of presence, with more presence associated with a 50 and 90i¾° geometric field of view when compared to a narrower 10i¾° geometric field of view. The results also indicated a significant positive correlation between the reported level of presence and the fidelity of the interaction between the virtual environment participant and the virtual world. Finally, it was shown that the survey questions evaluating several aspects of presence produced reliable responses across questions and studies, indicating that the questionnaire is a useful tool when evaluating presence in virtual environments.
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paper_title: Using Presence Questionnaires in Reality

paper_content:

A between-group experiment was carried out to assess whether two different presence questionnaires can distinguish between real and virtual experiences. One group of ten subjects searched for a box in a real office environment. A second group of ten subjects carried out the same task in a virtual environment that simulated the same office. Immediately after their experience, subjects were given two different presence questionnaires in randomized order: the Witmer and Singer Presence (WS), and the questionnaire developed by Slater, Usoh, and Steed (SUS). The paper argues that questionnaires should be able to pass a “reality test” whereby under current conditions the presence scores should be higher for real experiences than for virtual ones. Nevertheless, only the SUS had a marginally higher mean score for the real compared to the virtual, and there was no significant difference at all between the WS mean scores. It is concluded that, although such questionnaires may be useful when all subjects experience the same type of environment, their utility is doubtful for the comparison of experiences across environments, such as immersive virtual compared to real, or desktop compared to immersive virtual.
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paper_title: Telepresence via Television: Two Dimensions of Telepresence May Have Different Connections to Memory and Persuasion.

paper_content:

To be truly useful for media theory, the concept of presence should be applicable to all forms of virtual environments including those of traditional media like television and traditional content such as advertising. This study reports the results of an experiment on the effects of the visual angle of the display (sensory saturation) and room illumination (sensory suppression) on the sensation of telepresence during normal television viewing. A self-report measure of presence yielded two factors. Using [Gerrig's (1993)] terminology for the sense of being transported to a mediated environments, we labeled the two factors “arrival,” for the feeling of being there in the virtual environment, and “departure,” for the feeling of not being there in the in physical environment. It appears that being in the virtual environment is not equivalent to not being in the physical environment. A path analysis found that these two factors have very different relationships to viewer memory for the experience and for attitude change (i.e., buying intention and confidence in product decision). We theorize that the departure factor may be measuring the feeling that the medium has disappeared and may constitute a deeper absorption into the virtual environment. The study did not find evidence that visual angle and room illumination affected the sensation of telepresence
---
paper_title: The Influence of Dynamic Shadows on Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper describes an experiment where the effect of dynamic shadows in an immersive virtual environment is measured with respect to spatial perception and presence. Eight subjects were given tasks to do in a virtual environment. Each subject carried out five experimental trials, and the extent of dynamic shadow phenomena varied between the trials. Two measurements of presence were used — a subjective one based on a questionnaire, and a more objective behavioural measure. The experiment was inconclusive with respect to the effect of shadows on depth perception. However, the experiment suggests that for visually dominant subjects, the greater the extent of shadow phenomena in the virtual environment, the greater the sense of presence.
---
paper_title: Measuring the Sense of Presence and its Relations to Fear of Heights in Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This article describes a study in which a genuine effect of presence--the development of fear of virtual stimuli--was provoked. Using a self-report questionnaire, the sense of presence within this situation was measured. It was shown that fear increased with higher presence. The method, which involved 37 participants, was tested and validated with user tests at the Bauhaus University. A growing body of research in human-computer interface design for virtual environments (VE) concentrates on the problem of how to involve the user in the VE. This effect, usually called immersion or the sense of presence, has been the subject of much research activity. This research focuses on the influence of technical and technological parameters on the sense of presence. However, little work has been done on the effects of experienced sense of presence. One field in which a sense of presence is necessary for the successful application of VEs is the treatment of acrophobic patients. Our goals are to (a) create a theory-bas...
---
paper_title: Using Presence Questionnaires in Reality

paper_content:

A between-group experiment was carried out to assess whether two different presence questionnaires can distinguish between real and virtual experiences. One group of ten subjects searched for a box in a real office environment. A second group of ten subjects carried out the same task in a virtual environment that simulated the same office. Immediately after their experience, subjects were given two different presence questionnaires in randomized order: the Witmer and Singer Presence (WS), and the questionnaire developed by Slater, Usoh, and Steed (SUS). The paper argues that questionnaires should be able to pass a “reality test” whereby under current conditions the presence scores should be higher for real experiences than for virtual ones. Nevertheless, only the SUS had a marginally higher mean score for the real compared to the virtual, and there was no significant difference at all between the WS mean scores. It is concluded that, although such questionnaires may be useful when all subjects experience the same type of environment, their utility is doubtful for the comparison of experiences across environments, such as immersive virtual compared to real, or desktop compared to immersive virtual.
---
paper_title: The Influence of Dynamic Shadows on Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper describes an experiment where the effect of dynamic shadows in an immersive virtual environment is measured with respect to spatial perception and presence. Eight subjects were given tasks to do in a virtual environment. Each subject carried out five experimental trials, and the extent of dynamic shadow phenomena varied between the trials. Two measurements of presence were used — a subjective one based on a questionnaire, and a more objective behavioural measure. The experiment was inconclusive with respect to the effect of shadows on depth perception. However, the experiment suggests that for visually dominant subjects, the greater the extent of shadow phenomena in the virtual environment, the greater the sense of presence.
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paper_title: Development of a New Cross-Media Presence Questionnaire : The ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory

paper_content:

Summary • Previous studies have attempted to measure presence using simple post-test rating scales (e.g., Slater, Usoh & Steed, 1994; Barfield & Hendrix, 1996). • The stability of simple post-test ratings has been questioned (Freeman Avons, Pearson & IJsselsteijn, 1999). • More detailed, carefully piloted and psychometrically-sound questionnaires offer a solution to potential instabilities in simple post-test ratings. This approach has been adopted by Schubert, Friedmann and Regenbrecht (1999), Witmer and Singer (1998), and Kim and Biocca (1997). • These attempts have limitations, such as restricted media applications. • We present research documenting the development of a new cross-media presence questionnaire - the ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory (ITC-SOPI). • Preliminary results indicate four components: Physical Space, Engagement, Naturalness and Negative Effects. 1 Introduction Until recently, the subjective state of presence has been measured using between one and three simple post-test rating scales that require judgements comparing either: (i) the mediated experience to real life (Hendrix & Barfield, 1996; Slater & Usoh, 1994; Slater, Usoh & Steed, 1994), or (ii) one mediated environment to another (e.g., Welch, Blackmon, Liu, Mellers & Stark, 1996). Typically, the rating scales have been comprised of statements relating to the extent to which an individual: (i) feels physically located in a given mediated space, (ii) senses that a mediated environment "becomes more real, or present, compared to the real [
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paper_title: Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments: A Presence Questionnaire

paper_content:

The effectiveness of virtual environments (VEs) has often been linked to the sense of presence reported by users of those VEs. (Presence is defined as the subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when one is physically situated in another.) We believe that presence is a normal awareness phenomenon that requires directed attention and is based in the interaction between sensory stimulation, environmental factors that encourage involvement and enable immersion, and internal tendencies to become involved. Factors believed to underlie presence were described in the premier issue of Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. We used these factors and others as the basis for a presence questionnaire (PQ) to measure presence in VEs. In addition we developed an immersive tendencies questionnaire (ITQ) to measure differences in the tendencies of individuals to experience presence. These questionnaires are being used to evaluate relationships among reported presence and other research variables. Combined results from four experiments lead to the following conclusions: ::: the PQ and ITQ are internally consistent measures with high reliability; ::: there is a weak but consistent positive relation between presence and task performance in VEs; ::: individual tendencies as measured by the ITQ predict presence as measured by the PQ; and ::: individuals who report more simulator sickness symptoms in VE report less presence than those who report fewer symptoms.
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paper_title: Effects of Sensory Information and Prior Experience on Direct Subjective Ratings of Presence

paper_content:

We report three experiments using a new form of direct subjective presence evaluation that was developed from the method of continuous assessment used to assess television picture quality. Observers were required to provide a continuous rating of their sense of presence using a handheld slider. The first experiment investigated the effects of manipulating stereoscopic and motion parallax cues within video sequences presented on a 20 in. stereoscopic CRT display. The results showed that the presentation of both stereoscopic and motion parallax cues was associated with higher presence ratings. One possible interpretation of Experiment 1 is that CRT displays that contain the spatial cues of stereoscopic disparity and motion parallax are more interesting or engaging. To test this, observers in Experiment 2 rated the same stimuli first for interest and then for presence. The results showed that variations in interest did not predict the presence ratings obtained in Experiment 1. However, the subsequent ratings of presence differed significantly from those obtained in Experiment 1, suggesting that prior experience with interest ratings affected subsequent judgments of presence. To test this, Experiment 3 investigated the effects of prior experience on presence ratings. Three groups of observers rated a training sequence for interest, presence, and 3-Dness before rating the same stimuli as used for Experiments 1 and 2 for presence. The results demonstrated that prior ratings sensitize observers to different features of a display resulting in different presence ratings. The implications of these results for presence evaluation are discussed, and a combination of more-refined subjective measures and a battery of objective measures is recommended.
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paper_title: The Effects of Pictorial Realism, Delay of Visual Feedback, and Observer Interactivity on the Subjective Sense of Presence

paper_content:

Two experiments examined the effects of pictorial realism, observer interactivity, and delay of visual feedback on the sense of “presence.” Subjects were presented pairs of virtual environments a simulated driving task that differed In one or more ways from each other. After subjects had completed the second member of each pair they reported which of the two had produced the greater amount of presence and indicated the size of this difference by means of a 1-100 scale. As predicted, realism and interactivity increased presence while delay of visual feedback diminished it. According to subjects' verbal responses to a postexperiment Interview, pictorial realism was the least influential of the three variables examined. Further, although some subjects reported an increase in the sense of presence over the course of the experiment, most said that it had remained unchanged or become weaker.
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paper_title: Using Presence Questionnaires in Reality

paper_content:

A between-group experiment was carried out to assess whether two different presence questionnaires can distinguish between real and virtual experiences. One group of ten subjects searched for a box in a real office environment. A second group of ten subjects carried out the same task in a virtual environment that simulated the same office. Immediately after their experience, subjects were given two different presence questionnaires in randomized order: the Witmer and Singer Presence (WS), and the questionnaire developed by Slater, Usoh, and Steed (SUS). The paper argues that questionnaires should be able to pass a “reality test” whereby under current conditions the presence scores should be higher for real experiences than for virtual ones. Nevertheless, only the SUS had a marginally higher mean score for the real compared to the virtual, and there was no significant difference at all between the WS mean scores. It is concluded that, although such questionnaires may be useful when all subjects experience the same type of environment, their utility is doubtful for the comparison of experiences across environments, such as immersive virtual compared to real, or desktop compared to immersive virtual.
---
paper_title: A Virtual Presence Counter

paper_content:

This paper describes a new measure for presence in immersive virtual environments (VEs) that is based on data that can be unobtrusively obtained during the course of a VE experience. At different times during an experience, a participant will occasionally switch between interpreting the totality of sensory inputs as forming the VE or the real world. The number of transitions from virtual to real is counted, and, using some simplifying assumptions, a probabilistic Markov chain model can be constructed to model these transitions. This model can be used to estimate the equilibrium probability of being “present” in the VE. This technique was applied in the context of an experiment to assess the relationship between presence and body movement in an immersive VE. The movement was that required by subjects to reach out and touch successive pieces on a three-dimensional chess board. The experiment included twenty subjects, ten of whom had to reach out to touch the chess pieces (the active group) and ten of whom only had to click a handheld mouse button (the control group). The results revealed a significant positive association in the active group between body movement and presence. The results lend support to interaction paradigms that are based on maximizing the match between sensory data and proprioception.
---
paper_title: Using Behavioral Realism to Estimate Presence: A Study of the Utility of Postural Responses to Motion Stimuli

paper_content:

We recently reported that direct subjective ratings of the sense of presence are potentially unstable and can be biased by previous judgments of the same stimuli (Freeman et al., 1999). Objective measures of the behavioral realism elicited by a display offer an alternative to subjective ratings. Behavioral measures and presence are linked by the premise that, when observers experience a mediated environment (VE or broadcast) that makes them feel present, they will respond to stimuli within the environment as they would to stimuli in the real world. The experiment presented here measured postural responses to a video sequence filmed from the hood of a car traversing a rally track, using stereoscopic and monoscopic presentation. Results demonstrated a positive effect of stereoscopic presentation on the magnitude of postural responses elicited. Posttest subjective ratings of presence, vection, and involvement were also higher for stereoscopically presented stimuli. The postural and subjective measures were not significantly correlated, indicating that nonproprioceptive postural responses are unlikely to provide accurate estimates of presence. Such postural responses may prove useful for the evaluation of displays for specific applications and in the corroboration of group subjective ratings of presence, but cannot be taken in place of subjective ratings.
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paper_title: The Influence of Dynamic Shadows on Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper describes an experiment where the effect of dynamic shadows in an immersive virtual environment is measured with respect to spatial perception and presence. Eight subjects were given tasks to do in a virtual environment. Each subject carried out five experimental trials, and the extent of dynamic shadow phenomena varied between the trials. Two measurements of presence were used — a subjective one based on a questionnaire, and a more objective behavioural measure. The experiment was inconclusive with respect to the effect of shadows on depth perception. However, the experiment suggests that for visually dominant subjects, the greater the extent of shadow phenomena in the virtual environment, the greater the sense of presence.
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paper_title: Further musings on the psychophysics of presence

paper_content:

This is an extension of the author's earlier paper (1992) which considered alternative meanings and significance of "presence", the experience of "being there", commonly called "telepresence" in the case of remote control or teleoperation, and called "virtual presence" in the case of computer-generated simulation. In both cases presence can include feedback to the human senses of vision, hearing and haptics, both kinesthetic and cutaneous. Presence is discussed here in terms of alternative subjective meanings, operational measurements, and meaningful experimental comparisons. Three practical approaches to measurement of presence are discussed, including elicitation of "natural" neuromuscular or vocal responses, single or multidimensional subjective scaling, and ability to discriminate the real and immediate environment from that which is recorded transmitted or synthesized, under varying levels of constraint. The author also opines on the stimulus magnitude, space and time attributes of human interactions with a tele- or virtual environment. >
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paper_title: Foreground/Background Manipulations Affect Presence:

paper_content:

A possible relation between vection and presence is discussed. Two experiments examined the hypothesis that “presence” is enhanced by manipulations which facilitate interpreting visual scenes as “background.” A total of 39 participants in two experiments engaged in a pursuit game while in a virtual visual environment generated by an HMD and rated their experience of “presence” on 5 questions. Experiment 1 compared two viewing conditions: visual scene masking at the eye and a paper mask mounted on the screen with the same 60° FOV, and showed that presence was enhanced by eye masking relative to screen masking. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with a double-blind experimental design.
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paper_title: Using Behavioral Realism to Estimate Presence: A Study of the Utility of Postural Responses to Motion Stimuli

paper_content:

We recently reported that direct subjective ratings of the sense of presence are potentially unstable and can be biased by previous judgments of the same stimuli (Freeman et al., 1999). Objective measures of the behavioral realism elicited by a display offer an alternative to subjective ratings. Behavioral measures and presence are linked by the premise that, when observers experience a mediated environment (VE or broadcast) that makes them feel present, they will respond to stimuli within the environment as they would to stimuli in the real world. The experiment presented here measured postural responses to a video sequence filmed from the hood of a car traversing a rally track, using stereoscopic and monoscopic presentation. Results demonstrated a positive effect of stereoscopic presentation on the magnitude of postural responses elicited. Posttest subjective ratings of presence, vection, and involvement were also higher for stereoscopically presented stimuli. The postural and subjective measures were not significantly correlated, indicating that nonproprioceptive postural responses are unlikely to provide accurate estimates of presence. Such postural responses may prove useful for the evaluation of displays for specific applications and in the corroboration of group subjective ratings of presence, but cannot be taken in place of subjective ratings.
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paper_title: Evaluating the importance of multi-sensory input on memory and the sense of presence in virtual environments

paper_content:

322 subjects participated in an experimental study to investigate the effects of tactile, olfactory, audio and visual sensory cues on a participant's sense of presence in a virtual environment and on their memory for the environment and the objects in that environment. Results strongly indicate that increasing the modalities of sensory input in a virtual environment can increase both the sense of presence and memory for objects in the environment. In particular, the addition of tactile, olfactory and auditory cues to a virtual environment increased the user's sense of presence and memory of the environment. Surprisingly, increasing the level of visual detail did not result in an increase in the user's sense of presence or memory of the environment.
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paper_title: Telepresence via Television: Two Dimensions of Telepresence May Have Different Connections to Memory and Persuasion.

paper_content:

To be truly useful for media theory, the concept of presence should be applicable to all forms of virtual environments including those of traditional media like television and traditional content such as advertising. This study reports the results of an experiment on the effects of the visual angle of the display (sensory saturation) and room illumination (sensory suppression) on the sensation of telepresence during normal television viewing. A self-report measure of presence yielded two factors. Using [Gerrig's (1993)] terminology for the sense of being transported to a mediated environments, we labeled the two factors “arrival,” for the feeling of being there in the virtual environment, and “departure,” for the feeling of not being there in the in physical environment. It appears that being in the virtual environment is not equivalent to not being in the physical environment. A path analysis found that these two factors have very different relationships to viewer memory for the experience and for attitude change (i.e., buying intention and confidence in product decision). We theorize that the departure factor may be measuring the feeling that the medium has disappeared and may constitute a deeper absorption into the virtual environment. The study did not find evidence that visual angle and room illumination affected the sensation of telepresence
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paper_title: The Influence of Dynamic Shadows on Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper describes an experiment where the effect of dynamic shadows in an immersive virtual environment is measured with respect to spatial perception and presence. Eight subjects were given tasks to do in a virtual environment. Each subject carried out five experimental trials, and the extent of dynamic shadow phenomena varied between the trials. Two measurements of presence were used — a subjective one based on a questionnaire, and a more objective behavioural measure. The experiment was inconclusive with respect to the effect of shadows on depth perception. However, the experiment suggests that for visually dominant subjects, the greater the extent of shadow phenomena in the virtual environment, the greater the sense of presence.
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paper_title: Presence in virtual environments as a function of type of input device and display update rate

paper_content:

Abstract Presence in virtual environments can be defined as the participant's feeling or sense of “being there” in the virtual environment. Two factors which may influence the level of presence experienced by a participant within a virtual environment are the display update rate and the type of input device used for navigating within the virtual environment. This paper presents the results of a study examining the relationship between two types of input device and three display update rates on the user's sense of presence within a virtual environment. In the experiment, eight subjects used either a joystick or a SpaceBall to navigate through a virtual representation of Stonehenge at update rates of 10, 15, and 20 Hz. The task was to search for an object hidden within the virtual environment. It was found that although the type of input device had no effect on the user's sense of presence, an update rate of at least 15 Hz was the critical value for the user feeling present in the virtual environment. Implications of the results for the design of virtual environments and for creating a sense of presence within virtual environments are discussed.
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paper_title: The Sense of Presence within Auditory Virtual Environments

paper_content:

Two studies were performed to investigate the sense of presence within stereoscopic virtual environments as a function of the addition or absence of auditory cues. The first study examined the presence or absence of spatialized sound, while the second study compared the use of nonspatialized sound to spatialized sound. Sixteen subjects were allowed to navigate freely throughout several virtual environments and for each virtual environment, their level of presence, the virtual world realism, and interactivity between the participant and virtual environment were evaluated using survey questions. The results indicated that the addition of spatialized sound significantly increased the sense of presence but not the realism of the virtual environment. Despite this outcome, the addition of a spatialized sound source significantly increased the realism with which the subjects interacted with the sound source, and significantly increased the sense that sounds emanated from specific locations within the virtual environment. The results suggest that, in the context of a navigation task, while presence in virtual environments can be improved by the addition of auditory cues, the perceived realism of a virtual environment may be influenced more by changes in the visual rather than auditory display media. Implications of these results for presence within auditory virtual environments are discussed.
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paper_title: The Effects of Pictorial Realism, Delay of Visual Feedback, and Observer Interactivity on the Subjective Sense of Presence

paper_content:

Two experiments examined the effects of pictorial realism, observer interactivity, and delay of visual feedback on the sense of “presence.” Subjects were presented pairs of virtual environments a simulated driving task that differed In one or more ways from each other. After subjects had completed the second member of each pair they reported which of the two had produced the greater amount of presence and indicated the size of this difference by means of a 1-100 scale. As predicted, realism and interactivity increased presence while delay of visual feedback diminished it. According to subjects' verbal responses to a postexperiment Interview, pictorial realism was the least influential of the three variables examined. Further, although some subjects reported an increase in the sense of presence over the course of the experiment, most said that it had remained unchanged or become weaker.
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paper_title: Virtual Chess: Meaning Enhances Users' Sense of Presence in Virtual Environments

paper_content:

Presence refers to the sensation of going into a computer-simulated environment. We investigated whether presence and memory accuracy are affected by the meaningfulness of the information encountered in the virtual environment (VE). Non-chess players and three levels of chess players studied meaningful and meaningless chess positions in VEs. They rated the level of presence experienced in each and took an old-new recognition memory test. Non-chess players reported no difference in presence for meaningful compared with meaningless positions, yet even weak chess players reported feeling more present with meaningful compared with meaningless positions. Thus, only modest levels of expertise were needed to enhance presence. In contrast, tournament-level chess-playing ability was required before meaningful chess positions were remembered significantly more accurately than meaningless chess positions. Tournament players' memory accuracy was very high for meaningful positions but was the same as non-chess players...
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paper_title: Presence in virtual environments as a function of type of input device and display update rate

paper_content:

Abstract Presence in virtual environments can be defined as the participant's feeling or sense of “being there” in the virtual environment. Two factors which may influence the level of presence experienced by a participant within a virtual environment are the display update rate and the type of input device used for navigating within the virtual environment. This paper presents the results of a study examining the relationship between two types of input device and three display update rates on the user's sense of presence within a virtual environment. In the experiment, eight subjects used either a joystick or a SpaceBall to navigate through a virtual representation of Stonehenge at update rates of 10, 15, and 20 Hz. The task was to search for an object hidden within the virtual environment. It was found that although the type of input device had no effect on the user's sense of presence, an update rate of at least 15 Hz was the critical value for the user feeling present in the virtual environment. Implications of the results for the design of virtual environments and for creating a sense of presence within virtual environments are discussed.
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paper_title: Presence within Virtual Environments as a Function of Visual Display Parameters

paper_content:

This paper reports the results of three studies, each of which investigated the sense of presence within virtual environments as a function of visual display parameters. These factors included the presence or absence of head tracking, the presence or absence of stereoscopic cues, and the geometric field of view used to create the visual image projected on the visual display. In each study, subjects navigated a virtual environment and completed a questionnaire designed to ascertain the level of presence experienced by the participant within the virtual world. Specifically, two aspects of presence were evaluated: 1 the sense of “being there” and 2 the fidelity of the interaction between the virtual environment participant and the virtual world. Not surprisingly, the results of the first and second study indicated that the reported level of presence was significantly higher when head tracking and stereoscopic cues were provided. The results from the third study showed that the geometric field of view used to design the visual display highly influenced the reported level of presence, with more presence associated with a 50 and 90i¾° geometric field of view when compared to a narrower 10i¾° geometric field of view. The results also indicated a significant positive correlation between the reported level of presence and the fidelity of the interaction between the virtual environment participant and the virtual world. Finally, it was shown that the survey questions evaluating several aspects of presence produced reliable responses across questions and studies, indicating that the questionnaire is a useful tool when evaluating presence in virtual environments.
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paper_title: The Effects of Pictorial Realism, Delay of Visual Feedback, and Observer Interactivity on the Subjective Sense of Presence

paper_content:

Two experiments examined the effects of pictorial realism, observer interactivity, and delay of visual feedback on the sense of “presence.” Subjects were presented pairs of virtual environments a simulated driving task that differed In one or more ways from each other. After subjects had completed the second member of each pair they reported which of the two had produced the greater amount of presence and indicated the size of this difference by means of a 1-100 scale. As predicted, realism and interactivity increased presence while delay of visual feedback diminished it. According to subjects' verbal responses to a postexperiment Interview, pictorial realism was the least influential of the three variables examined. Further, although some subjects reported an increase in the sense of presence over the course of the experiment, most said that it had remained unchanged or become weaker.
---
paper_title: The Influence of Dynamic Shadows on Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper describes an experiment where the effect of dynamic shadows in an immersive virtual environment is measured with respect to spatial perception and presence. Eight subjects were given tasks to do in a virtual environment. Each subject carried out five experimental trials, and the extent of dynamic shadow phenomena varied between the trials. Two measurements of presence were used — a subjective one based on a questionnaire, and a more objective behavioural measure. The experiment was inconclusive with respect to the effect of shadows on depth perception. However, the experiment suggests that for visually dominant subjects, the greater the extent of shadow phenomena in the virtual environment, the greater the sense of presence.
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paper_title: Depth of Presence in Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper describes a study to assess the influence of a variety of factors on reported level of presence in immersive virtual environments. It introduces the idea of “stacking depth,” that is, where a participant can simulate the process of entering the virtual environment while already in such an environment, which can be repeated to several levels of depth. An experimental study including 24 subjects was carried out. Half of the subjects were transported between environments by using virtual head-mounted displays, and the other half by going through doors. Three other binary factors were whether or not gravity operated, whether or not the subject experienced a virtual precipice, and whether or not the subject was followed around by a virtual actor. Visual, auditory, and kinesthetic representation systems and egocentric/exocentric perceptual positions were assessed by a preexperiment questionnaire. Presence was assessed by the subjects as their sense of “being there,” the extent to which they experienced the virtual environments as more the presenting reality than the real world in which the experiment was taking place, and the extent to which the subject experienced the virtual environments as places visited rather than images seen. A logistic regression analysis revealed that subjective reporting of presence was significantly positively associated with visual and kinesthetic representation systems, and negatively with the auditory system. This was not surprising since the virtual reality system used was primarily visual. The analysis also showed a significant and positive association with stacking level depth for those who were transported between environments by using the virtual HMD, and a negative association for those who were transported through doors. Finally, four of the subjects moved their real left arm to match movement of the left arm of the virtual body displayed by the system. These four scored significantly higher on the kinesthetic representation system than the remainder of the subjects.
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paper_title: Representations Systems, Perceptual Position, and Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

paper_content:

This paper discusses factors that may contribute to the participant's sense of presence in immersive virtual environments. We distinguish between external factors, that is those wholly determined by the hardware and software technology employed to generate the environment, and subjective factors, that is how sensory inputs to the human participant are processed internally. The therapeutic technique known as neurolinguistic programming NLP is used as a basis for measuring such internal factors. NLP uses the idea of representation systems visual, auditory, and kinesthetic and perceptual position egocentric or exocentric to code subjective experience. The paper also considers one external factor, that is how the virtual environment represents a participant-either as a complete body, or just an arrow cursor that responds to hand movements. A case-control pilot experiment is described, where the controls have self-representation as an arrow cursor, and the experimental group subjects as a simple virtual body. Measurements of subjects' preferred representation systems and perceptual positions are obtained based on counts of types of predicates and references used in essays written after the experiment. These, together with the control variable possession/absence of a virtual body, are used as explanatory variables in a regression analysis, with reported sense of presence as the dependent variable. Although tentative and exploratory in nature, the data analysis does suggest a relationship between reported sense of presence, preferred representation system, perceptual position, and an interaction effect between these and the virtual body factor.
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Title: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Research on Presence in Virtual Reality: A Survey

Section 1: INTRODUCTION
Description 1: Introduce the significance of virtual reality (VR) in psychiatry and therapy, and explain the paper's main goal to investigate the concept of presence.

Section 2: ON THE NATURE OF PRESENCE
Description 2: Describe the various definitions and theories of presence in immersive VR as proposed by different researchers.

Section 3: Definitions
Description 3: Provide an overview of the different definitions of presence, including terms like social richness, realism, transportation, immersion, and others as explained by Lombard and Ditton, Sheridan, Heeter, Slater and Wilbur, and Zeltzer.

Section 4: Theories
Description 4: Detail the various theories on the nature of presence such as presence as non-mediation, exclusive presence, presence by involvement, ecological view, social/cultural view, estimation theory, and embodied presence.

Section 5: RESULTS OF PRESENCE
Description 5: Review the theories and empirical studies on the consequences and usefulness of presence, including subjective sensation, task performance, responses and emotions, and simulator sickness.

Section 6: MEASURING PRESENCE
Description 6: Discuss the different methods for measuring presence, distinguishing between subjective and objective measures, and provide examples of questionnaires and other subjective and objective methods.

Section 7: Subjective measures: Questionnaires
Description 7: Describe the most commonly used subjective measures through questionnaires, including those developed by Slater and colleagues, Witmer and Singer, Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ), Kim and Biocca, ITC Sense of Presence Inventory (ITC-SOPI), and Lombard and Ditton.

Section 8: Other subjective measures
Description 8: Present other subjective measurement techniques such as continuous measure, presence counter, and focus group exploration.

Section 9: Objective measures: Behavioral
Description 9: Explain the objective behavioral measures of presence by examining people's reactions to mediated stimuli.

Section 10: Objective measures: Physiological
Description 10: Elaborate on physiological measures of presence, including heart rate, skin temperature, and skin conductance.

Section 11: CAUSES OF PRESENCE
Description 11: Summarize research on factors contributing to presence, categorized into system characteristics, interaction elements, and user characteristics.

Section 12: Vividness
Description 12: Provide an overview of empirical studies examining the relationship between VE vividness factors (such as FOV, stereoscopy, sound, tactile cues, etc.) and presence.

Section 13: Interactivity
Description 13: Examine the role of interactivity, including control factors, body movement, and interaction between users on experienced presence in VR.

Section 14: User characteristics
Description 14: Discuss individual differences in experiencing presence, including preferences for sensory modalities, age, and other psychological perceptual systems.

Section 15: DISCUSSION
Description 15: Highlight the gaps in current research on presence in VR, especially its relationship to emotional responses and task performance in therapeutic applications. Suggest areas for future research.