Exploring the effect of diverse technologies incorporated in virtual museums on visitors' perceived sense of presence

This paper presents the preliminary results of a research project aimed at exploring the perceived sense of presence incorporated in diverse technologies used in Virtual Museums. It initially presents the selection criteria and the five museum websites involved in the analysis. Then, it describes the evaluation process, in which a group of subjects explored the museums’ on-line resources and completed a presence. The results of a double-phased statistical analysis are discussed, which investigated the technological conditions under which a Virtual Museum enhances the visitors’ experience of presence.

[1]  Ross Parry.  Recoding the Museum: Digital Heritage and the Technologies of Change , 2007 .

[2]  Laia Pujol Tost,et al.  A Critical Examination of Presence Applied to Cultural Heritage , 2007 .

[3]  Maria V. Sanchez-Vives,et al.  From presence to consciousness through virtual reality , 2005, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[4]  G. Riva,et al.  Being There: Concepts, Effects and Measurements of User Presence in Synthetic Environments , 2003 .

[5]  P. Marty.  Museum Websites and Museum Visitors: Before and After the Museum Visit , 2007 .

[6]  Laia Pujol,et al.  Evaluating presence in cultural heritage projects , 2012 .

[7]  J. Falk,et al.  The Museum Experience , 1992 .

[8]  Michael J. Singer,et al.  Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments: A Presence Questionnaire , 1998, Presence.

[9]  Peter van der Straaten,et al.  Research on Presence in VR: a Survey , 2001 .

[10]  Peter Whalley,et al.  Interaction as Enquiry - Learning with Layered Dynamic Media , 2003, INTERACT.

[11]  Giuseppe Riva,et al.  Being there : the experience of presence in mediated environments , 2003 .

[12]  Ross Parry.  Digital Heritage and the rise of theory in museum computing , 2005 .

[13]  Luca Chittaro,et al.  Adaptable visual presentation of 2D and 3D learning materials in web-based cyberworlds , 2006, The Visual Computer.

[14]  Martin White,et al.  Exploring the relationship between presence and enjoyment in a virtual museum , 2010, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[15]  Carrie Heeter,et al.  Being There: The Subjective Experience of Presence , 1992, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[16]  Paolo Paolini,et al.  3D worlds and Cultural Heritage: Realism vs Virtual Presence. , 2005 .

[17]  Wijnand A. IJsselsteijn,et al.  Presence: concept, determinants, and measurement , 2000, Electronic Imaging.

[18]  Woodrow Barfield,et al.  Presence and performance within virtual environments , 1995 .

[19]  Mel Slater,et al.  The Use of Questionnaire Data in Presence Studies: Do Not Seriously Likert , 2007, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[20]  Mel Slater,et al.  Measuring Presence: A Response to the Witmer and Singer Presence Questionnaire , 1999, Presence.

[21]  Gavriel Salvendy,et al.  Aftereffects and Sense of Presence in Virtual Environments: Formulation of a Research and Development Agenda , 1998, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[22]  P. Marty.  Museum websites and museum visitors: digital museum resources and their use , 2008 .

[23]  Ioannis Paliokas,et al.  Archaeo Viz - a 3D explorative learning environment of reconstructed archaeological sites and cultural artefacts , 2010, 2010 International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications (SIGMAP).