Sense of Presence in Emotional Virtual Environments
Rosa Baños, Cristina Botella, Víctor Liaño, Belén Guerrero, Beatriz Rey Solaz, Mariano Alcañíz · 2004
Most definitions on presence have been based on cognitive or environmental aspects. However, we think that presence, like all human experiences, is influenced by emotions. EMMA project (IST-2001-39192) is aimed to study the nature of this relationship between emotions and presence. One of the main hypotheses proposed by EMMA is that emotions may enhance presence. In this line, the main objective of the present paper is to study the differences in presence between “emotional” environments and “neutral” environments. In order to achieve this objective, we have designed a Mood Induction Procedure using VR (VR-MIP, to induce different moods (sadness, joy, anxiety and relax) in experimental subjects. Our results point out that VR-MIPs are able to induce different moods in the users. Regarding the role of mood on the sense of presence, our results show differences between emotional and neutral environments in some presence measurements.