Presence: Interacting in VR?
Martijn J. Schuemie · 1999
An important concept in Virtual Reality (VR) is that of presence; the subjective perception that a mediated experience seems very much like it is not mediated. Many authors have assumed a strong relation between presence and the level of interactivity, and this article will look into this assumption. Several variables of interactivity show a clear relation to presence, but others are more complex. Knowing which elements of a Virtual Environment (VE) can attribute to presence is necessary for some applications such as treatment of phobia, necessitating further research into this area. Keywords: interactivity, presence, virtual reality, human-computer interaction, phobia 1INTRODUCTION When using Virtual Reality people often experience a feeling of actually being in the computer generated environment, a feeling described as `presence'. Presence can more explicitly be defined as a mediated experience that seems very much like it is not mediated [5]. When a user experiences a high level ...