Evaluation Topics: Immersion & Presence
Last updated
Last updated
Virtual Reality experiences can be mapped along 3 primary scales: Reality, Interaction, and Movement. (source: Punchcut).
Testing for Immersion and Presence can be a challenge, so it is important to have a basic understanding of these principles.
Immersion: does the user completely forget the physical world during the VR-experience?
Presence: does the user believe his existence in the VR-world is real?
Place Illusion: does the user believe he is in a place even though he knows he is not there?
Plausibility Illusion: does the user believe that what's happening is really happening?
Agency: does the user feel stimulated enough to act in the experience?
Tools: Biometrics (body measurements and calculations) - Interviews - Questionnaires
Read the articles below and get an overview and see what possibilities in biometrics can be taken into your projects.
Virtual Reality Infographics Presence in Virtual Reality, Mark Billinghurst & Bruce Thomas Measuring the Power of Virtual Reality Immersion (biometrics) [A Case Study] (Indepth) A Framework for Immersive Virtual Environments (FIVE): Speculations on the Role of Presence in Virtual Environments
This research by Emily Brown and Paul Cairns defines three phases of immersion and, importantly, six barriers to entry. (source: A grounded investigation of game immersion)
Immersion is a description of a technology, and describes the extent to which the computer displays are capable of delivering an inclusive, extensive, surrounding and vivid illusion of reality to the senses of a human participant. (source: http://publicationslist.org/data/melslater/ref-232/pres5.pdf)
Inclusive (I) indicates the extent to which physical reality is shut out.
Extensive (E) indicates the range of sensory modalities accommodated.
Surrounding (S) indicates the extent to which this virtual reality is panoramic rather than limited to a narrow field.
Vivid (V) indicates the resolution, fidelity, and variety of energy simulated within a particular modality (for example, the visual and colour resolution). Vividness is concerned with the richness, information content, resolution and quality of the displays.
Presence in Virtual Reality, Mark Billinghurst & Bruce Thomas
Presence is a state of consciousness, the (psychological) sense of being in the virtual environment. It is very subjective and therefore still a topic of debate amongst researchers.
The below graphic depicts two theories: Kent Bye’s ‘Elemental Theory of Presence‘, and the ‘Perceptual Theory of Presence’. The two theories have been anchored by Mel Slater’s two illusions of presence: place illusion (PI) and plausibility illusion (Psi)
The degree of presence corresponds to the degree to which the user responds realistically to the experience in VR. If perfect presence is achieved then the user will respond exactly as if exposed to an equivalent real-world environment. This presence response occurs on multiple levels ranging from unconscious and automatic physiological and behavioural responses to higher level processes involving deliberation and thoughts.
Presence can not be reduced to the subjective sensation of ‘being there’. Presence response happens as a function of two illusions:
place illusion (PI)
plausibility illusion (Psi)
Place illusion occurs as a function to the range of normal actions the user can perform in order to perceive and affect the experience. For example, turning one’s head of kneeling down should result in changes to displaced image, and reaching out and grasping an object should cause that object to move.
Plausibility illusion refers to the illusion that the events happening virtually are indeed happening. It is believed to depend on three conditions:
The user’s actions have to produce reactions that correspond to the virtual character in the experience. (such as avoiding eye-contact by the virtual character. What if the user stares too long and exhibits aggressive body language to the virtual character. Does the virtual character look away?)
The experience should correspond directly to the user, even when the user does not perform an instigating action.
The experience should be credible, it should conform to the user’s knowledge and expectations accrued through a lifetime of non-mediated interactions.
The virtual body is viewed as crucial since it represents the fusion of Place Illusion and Plausibility Illusion. (source Virtual Reality and the Senses)
‘Agency‘ is the capacity of an entity (a person or other entity) to act in an artificial environment. It is a key contributor to enabling a state of presence in the experiencer.
