The Borderline of Science: On the Value of Factor Analysis for Understanding Presence

The use of exploratory factor analysis in research on presence is summarized and critically examined. We conclude that, as with research on human intelligence in the first half of the twentieth century, exploratory factor analysis has been extremely limited in its ability to test hypotheses and to advance theory. To illustrate these ideas, we examine a recent analysis by Witmer, Jerome, and Singer (2005, Presence 14, 298312). We suggest that analyses based on confirmatory methods are in general better suited to advance our understanding of the concept of presence.

[1]  Woodrow Barfield,et al.  Collaborative Task Performance for Learning Using a Virtual Environment , 1999, Presence.

[2]  Gary James Jason,et al.  The Logic of Scientific Discovery , 1988 .

[3]  L. Thurstone.  The Vectors of Mind , 1935 .

[4]  C. SPEARMAN,et al.  The Measurement of Intelligence , 1927, Nature.

[5]  M. Kendall,et al.  The Logic of Scientific Discovery. , 1959 .

[6]  K. Holzinger,et al.  A study in factor analysis : the stability of a bi-factor solution , 1939 .

[7]  R. Cattell.  Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment. , 1963 .

[8]  Jay Magidson,et al.  Advances in factor analysis and structural equation models , 1980 .

[9]  J. Overall.  NOTE ON THE SCIENTIFIC STATUS OF FACTORS. , 1964, Psychological bulletin.

[10]  H. P. Bechtoldt.  Factor Analysis and the Investigation of Hypotheses , 1962 .

[11]  Thomas B. Sheridan,et al.  Musings on Telepresence and Virtual Presence , 1992, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[12]  Michael J. Singer,et al.  The Factor Structure of the Presence Questionnaire , 2005, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

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

[14]  J. Tukey,et al.  Multiple-Factor Analysis , 1947 .

[15]  Jonathan Freeman,et al.  A Cross-Media Presence Questionnaire: The ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory , 2001, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[16]  J. Guilford,et al.  The nature of human intelligence. , 1968 .

[17]  Chih-Hsiung Tu,et al.  The Measurement of Social Presence in an Online Learning Environment , 2002 .

[18]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Intelligence, Information Processing and Analogical Reasoning : The Componential Analysis of Human Abilities , 1977 .

[19]  K. Jöreskog.  A general approach to confirmatory maximum likelihood factor analysis , 1969 .

[20]  Robert J. Sternberg,et al.  Handbook of human intelligence , 1984 .

[21]  Eva Lindh Waterworth,et al.  Focus, Locus, and Sensus: The Three Dimensions of Virtual Experience , 2001, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

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

[23]  C. Burt.  Experimental Tests of General Intelligence. , 1909 .

[24]  Frank Biocca,et al.  Visual Touch in Virtual Environments: An Exploratory Study of Presence, Multimodal Interfaces, and Cross-Modal Sensory Illusions , 2001, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[25]  Joe L. Lewis,et al.  What does it mean to be high verbal? , 1975, Cognitive Psychology.

[26]  R. Sternberg.  Nothing Fails Like Success: The Search for an Intelligent Paradigm for Studying Intelligence. , 1981 .

[27]  Duane T. Wegener,et al.  Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. , 1999 .

[28]  Earl Hunt,et al.  The Transfer of Spatial Knowledge in Virtual Environment Training , 1998, Presence.

[29]  J. Armstrong,et al.  Derivation of Theory by Means of Factor Analysis or Tom Swift and His Electric Factor Analysis Machine , 2015 .

[30]  Holger Regenbrecht,et al.  The Experience of Presence: Factor Analytic Insights , 2001, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[31]  Mel Slater,et al.  Representations Systems, Perceptual Position, and Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments , 1993, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[32]  David Zeltzer,et al.  Autonomy, Interaction, and Presence , 1992, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[33]  Michael Knight,et al.  Measurement of Presence in large scale Virtual environments , 2003 .

[34]  Stephen K. Reed,et al.  Book reviewIntelligence, information processing, and analogical reasoning: by Robert J. Sternberg. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1977. xi + 348 pp. $19.95 , 1977 .

[35]  H. Kaiser.  The varimax criterion for analytic rotation in factor analysis , 1958 .

[36]  Concepción Perpiñá,et al.  Presence and Reality Judgment in Virtual Environments: A Unitary Construct? , 2000, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[37]  J. Horn.  A rationale and test for the number of factors in factor analysis , 1965, Psychometrika.

[38]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Intelligence: A Brief History , 2004 .

[39]  David A. Rettinger,et al.  How are visuospatial working memory, executive functioning, and spatial abilities related? A latent-variable analysis. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

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

[41]  C. Spearman.  General intelligence Objectively Determined and Measured , 1904 .

[42]  H. Birx,et al.  The Mismeasure of Man , 1981 .

[43]  J. Gustafsson.  A unifying model for the structure of intellectual abilities , 1984 .