The Effects of Physiologically-Adaptive Virtual Environment on User’s Sense of Presence

Abstract

The effectiveness of Virtual Environments (VEs) may be defined in terms of different aspects. A common one is the degree to which the VE creates in the user the subjective illusion of presence, the sense of being in the VE. Since presence is a subjective condition, it has most commonly been measured by subjective methods, especially by post-questionnaires. However, objective measures have been proposed, mainly based on Electrodermal Activity (EDA), Heart Rate (HR) and Behavior Observation (BO). In this work, it was investigated the possibility of dynamically modulating the sense of presence in a Virtual Reality (VR) experience, based on physiological measures on the fly. Although these measures have already been applied for assessment in VR, whether they can be used to dynamically modulate the presence in VR experiences remain an open question. Subjective, physiological and behavioral reactions of 27 subjects during a fully immersive experience under three different conditions (NS: None Stimulus, PS: Pre-set Time Stimulus and DS: Dynamic Stimulus) were observed, varying the stimulus based on HR and EDA variation. Although it was not found a difference for the SUS presence questionnaire, it was found a significant difference for the physiological measures between the NS and DS condition, showing that it was possible to dynamically modulate the VR experience using real-time HR and EDA to increase the effectiveness of VR experiences.