Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments: A Survey

The effectiveness of a virtual reality experience is strongly affected by the sense of presence of the users involved. This article reviews the different definitions of presence and the main proposed methods to measure it through the analysis of 1,214 papers published in the past 30 years. From the analysis of 239 user studies, we found that 85.8% used subjective measures, 11.7% used a combination of subjective and objective measures, while 2.5% used only objective measures. We also identified, from the studies reviewed, 29 main factors to evoke presence in virtual environments, grouped into four categories: Engagement, Personal Characteristics, Interaction Fidelity, and Display Fidelity.

Feasibility of Combining Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and Active Fully Embodied Virtual Reality for Visual Height Intolerance: A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Study

Background: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) and Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) are individually increasingly used in psychiatric research. Objective/Hypothesis: Our study aimed to investigate the feasibility of combining tDCS and VRET with the features of wireless, 360° full immersion and embodiment and an active task to reduce height-induced anxiety. Methods: We carried out a pilot randomized, double-blind, controlled study associating VRET (two 20 min sessions with a 48 h interval, during which, participants had to cross a plank at rising heights in a building in construction) with online tDCS (targeting the ventromedial prefrontal cortex) with 28 participants. The primary outcomes were the sense of presence level and the tolerability. The secondary outcomes were the anxiety level (Subjective Unit of Discomfort) and the salivary cortisol concentration. Results: We confirmed the feasibility of the association between tDCS and fully embodied VRET associated with a good sense of presence without noticeable adverse effects. In both groups, a significant reduction in the fear of height was observed after two sessions, with only a small effect size of add-on tDCS (0.1) according to the SUD. The variations of cortisol concentration differed in the tDCS and sham groups. Conclusion: Our study confirmed the feasibility of the association between wireless online tDCS and active, fully embodied VRET. The optimal tDCS paradigm remains to be determined in this context to increase effect size and then adequately power future clinical studies assessing synergies between both techniques.

Factors That Influence Virtual Tourism Holistic Image: The Moderating Role of Sense of Presence

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically restricted domestic and foreign travel; thus, virtual tourism has become a new option for traveling. As regards virtual tourism, the present study seeks to investigate the effect of tourist involvement on the three components of holistic image, namely cognitive, affective, and conative images; the influence of cognitive, affective, and conative images on the construction of the holistic image; and the moderating effect of sense of presence on the relationships between cognitive, affective, and conative images on the holistic image. Prospective tourists were chosen as research subjects in the present study on non-immersive virtual reality (VR) tourism, or virtual tourism. Participants first watched the 360° VR tour video of AirPano. Afterward, they filled out an online questionnaire, of which 386 valid samples were collected for analyses. Results show that tourist involvement considerably affects cognitive, affective, and conative images, which significantly influence the holistic image. Furthermore, a sense of presence was found to positively moderate the relationships between (1) cognitive and holistic, (2) affective and holistic, and (3) conative and holistic images. These results may allow tourism marketing organizations to better understand how to strengthen the holistic image in the context of virtual tourism.

Cognitive Performance in Immersive Environments After Acquired Brain Injury

The use of immersive environments such as virtual and augmented reality is quickly developing. For cognitive assessment and training in a neuropsychological setting, this offers a perspective for innovation and improvement of existing methods. Most of the current clinical uses of immersive environments focus on factors such as anxiety, or motor activities for physical therapy. Cognitive applications, concerning, for example, memory, attention, visuospatial processing, are relatively scarce. In this chapter, considerations of using immersive environments for cognitive purposes are presented. In addition to immersion, the individual experience of immersive environments, as expressed by sense of presence, will be discussed. By examining advantages and disadvantages of using immersive environments to measure and train cognitive performance, recommendations for clinical use of these methods are provided.

Video Games as a Media for Tourism Experience

Virtual reality technology in recent year has been a hot topic in tourism and hospitality field, both for research and practical purposes. Virtual technology has some limitation, such as costs and time, which can be addressed by a different form of virtual technology, which is video games. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of mental imagery, sense of presence and addition of storytelling towards tourism experience by using video games as a medium. Previous studies have analyzed effects of mental imagery and presence towards the tourism experience, but there is lack of research in using storytelling or narratives to add to the tourism experience. Storytelling has been studied in marketing field, and has been found to be a great marketing tool, because people love to hear stories. Video games can be a better tool for delivering storytelling, while providing solid mental imagery and a sense of presence to the location. The methodology proposed for this study is a quantitative approach, using survey questionnaire as a tool. Two sampling method is proposed. The first is to use players of location-based games as the population, and randomly take the sample. The second method is to uses tourists or potential tourists of a destination, have the respondents try out the game, and answer the questionnaire. The proposed research could provide the importance of storytelling to be added for virtual reality and video games usage in tourism and hospitality field.

Emergence and Rapid Popularization of Paid Web-Conferencing-Application-Based Tours in Japan: An Analysis of Their Business Potential

Following the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic, people in Japan were asked to refrain from traveling, resulting in various companies coming up with new ways of experiencing tourism. Among them, the online tourism experience of H.I.S. Co., Ltd. (HIS) drew more than 100,000 participants as of August 29, 2021. In this study, we focused on an online tour where the host goes to the site and records real time communication using a web conference application. The destinations of online tours were analyzed through text mining, and the characteristics of online tours were analyzed using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) of topic models. The results show that the number of online tours is weakly negatively correlated with distance and time differences. From the topic model, it is evident that the guide is important in online tours. In addition, the sense of presence, communication environment, and images, which are considered to be unique topics in online tours, are also relevant to the evaluation.

Reform and Practice of Immersive Teaching in Environmental Acoustics

Environmental Acoustics is a professional course that educates students majoring in Acoustics. Affected by practical equipment and other factors, the teaching effect of knowledge points relevant to subjective auditory perception contained in the course is poor. Taking the course of Spatial Hearing and 3D Stereo as an example, this study develops a virtual simulation experiment system for the topic of subjective hearing perception in order to carry out the reform and practice of immersive teaching. Combined with the virtual simulation experiment project with high sense of presence, students are supported by the actual auditory perception effect in the whole learning process and have achieved good learning effect.

A Comparative Study of Virtual Footwear Try-on Applications in Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual try-on technology (VTO) in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) has been developed for years to create novel shopping experiences for users by allowing them to virtually wear fashion products. Compared to garments or facial accessories, fewer studies have focused on virtual footwear try-on, regardless of user study or technical development. Thus, it is necessary to examine the effectiveness of existing VTO applications on the user's affective responses. In this study, we compared the user experience of three different footwear try-on methods (real, VR, and AR) with both physiological and psychological measures. Subjects conducted a try-on experiment on different pairs of sneakers. Each subject's gaze trajectory was recorded using an eye tracker and analyzed to show his/her visual attention in each method. Afterward, the subjects completed questionnaires to assess the sense of presence, usability, and the user experience score for the try-on processes, and subsequently attended a think-aloud procedure to express their thoughts. The analysis results of the collected data showed that the user experience produced by the VR and AR try-on is not comparable to that of the real environment. The results also revealed factors that negatively affect the quality of the user's interaction with the processes. These findings may provide insights into further improvements in VTO technology.

Immersive Virtual Reality Experience of Historical Events Using Haptics and Locomotion Simulation

Virtual reality (VR) and 3D modeling technologies have become increasingly powerful tools for multiple fields, such as education, architecture, and cultural heritage. Museums are no longer places for only placing and exhibiting collections and artworks. They use such technologies to offer a new way of communicating art and history with their visitors. In this paper, we present the initial results of a proposed workflow towards highlighting and interpreting a historic event with the use of an immersive and interactive VR experience and the utilization of multiple senses of the user. Using a treadmill for navigating and haptic gloves for interacting with the environment, combined with the detailed 3D models, deepens the sense of immersion. The results of our study show that engaging multiple senses and visual manipulation in an immersive 3D environment can effectively enhance the perception of visual realism and evoke a stronger sense of presence, amplifying the educational and informative experience in a museum.