Abstract
The concepts of “immersion” and “presence” have been considered as staple metrics for evaluating the quality of virtual reality experiences for more than five decades, even as the concepts themselves have evolved in terms of both technical and psychological aspects. To enhance the user’s experience, studies have investigated the impact of different visual, auditory, and haptic stimuli in various contexts to mainly explore the concepts of “plausibility illusion” and “place illusion”. Previous research has sometimes shown a positive correlation between increased realism and an increase in presence, but not always, and thus, very little of the work around the topic of presence reports an unequivocal correlation. Indeed, one might classify the overall findings within the field around presence as “messy”. Better (or more) visual, auditory, or haptic cues, or increased agency, may lead to increased realism, but not necessarily increased presence, and may well depend on the application context. Rich visual and audio cues in concert contribute significantly to both realism and presence, but the addition of tactile cues, gesture input support, or a combination of these might improve realism, but not necessarily presence. In this paper, we review previous research and suggest a possible theory to better define the relationship between increases in sensory-based realism and presence, and thus help VR researchers create more effective experiences.
Highlights
“It’s so real!” “This is such a realistic experience!” We believe almost all Virtual Reality (VR) researchers and developers have heard these expressions at least once when successfully delivering immersive VR experience to the general public
The most frequently used term is probably related to realism, and using the phrase “the level of realism” might be the easiest way to make the general public understand the quality of a VR experience
Suggest a revised version of a reality continuum, and propose a three-dimensional model that includes “Extent of World Knowledge,” “Immersion,” and “Coherence.” A deep discussion of this important work is beyond the scope of this paper; please refer to it for more details (Skarbez et al, 2021). Noticeable attributes of this model are that Coherence is similar to Plausibility Illusion (Psi), and both suggest the importance of the context of the given VR experience
Summary
“It’s so real!” “This is such a realistic experience!” We believe almost all Virtual Reality (VR) researchers and developers have heard these expressions at least once when successfully delivering immersive VR experience to the general public. A VR experience that uses a HMD has higher immersion than a screen-based VR experience In line with this perspective, realness can be evaluated by, for example, the visual representation of the computer-generated world in terms of the number of triangles and the resolution of textures McDonnell et al (2012), Latoschik et al (2017), and enhanced auditory feedback such as spatialized audio (Naef et al, 2002). The perception or cognition of the surroundings and their own virtual body are correlated, and highly influence the sense of presence and body ownership, leading to subjectively highly-rated qualified VR experiences Using these terms and definitions as lenses, revisiting the two opening user comments, “It is so real!” and “This is such a realistic experience!“, might be interesting. Note: This article is based on the assumption that VR has at least visual stimuli, regardless existence of other external sensory stimulation (Skarbez et al, 2021), following the definition of Milgram and Kishino’s reality-virtuality continuum (Milgram and Kishino, 1994)
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