Physiological measures of presence in stressful virtual environments

A common measure of the quality or effectiveness of a virtual environment (VE) is the mount of presence it evokes in users. Presence is often defined as the sense of being there in a VE. There has been much debate about the best way to measure presence, and presence researchers need, and have sought, a measure that is reliable, valid, sensitive, and objective.We hypothesized that to the degree that a VE seems real, it would evoke physiological responses similar to those evoked by the corresponding real environment, and that greater presence would evoke a greater response. To examine this, we conducted three experiments, the results of which support the use of physiological reaction as a reliable, valid, sensitive, and objective presence measure. The experiments compared participants' physiological reactions to a non-threatening virtual room and their reactions to a stressful virtual height situation. We found that change in heart rate satisfied our requirements for a measure of presence, change in skin conductance did to a lesser extent, and that change in skin temperature did not. Moreover, the results showed that inclusion of a passive haptic element in the VE significantly increased presence and that for presence evoked: 30FPS > 20FPS > 15FPS.

[1]  B. Turner.  Environmental physiology , 1975, Nature.

[2]  J. Andreassi.  Psychophysiology: Human Behavior and Physiological Response , 1980 .

[3]  P. Emmelkamp,et al.  The process of exposure in vivo: cognitive and physiological changes during treatment of acrophobia. , 1985, Behaviour research and therapy.

[4]  N. Sutherland.  The international dictionary of psychology , 1989 .

[5]  J. Abelson,et al.  Cardiac and neuroendocrine responses to exposure therapy in height phobics: desynchrony within the 'physiological response system'. , 1989, Behaviour research and therapy.

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

[7]  Bruce C. Straits,et al.  Approaches to social research , 1993 .

[8]  Mel Slater,et al.  Depth of Presence in Virtual Environments , 1994, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

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

[10]  Mel Slater,et al.  Taking steps: the influence of a walking technique on presence in virtual reality , 1995, TCHI.

[11]  I. S. Mackenzie,et al.  Virtual Environments and Advanced Interface Design , 1995 .

[12]  Thomas B. Sheridan.  Further Musings on the Psychophysics of Presence , 1996, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[13]  Stephen R. Ellis,et al.  Presence of Mind:A Reaction to Thomas Sheridan's Further Musings on the Psychophysics of Presence , 1996, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[14]  Matthew Lombard,et al.  At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence , 2006 .

[15]  D. Kleinbaum,et al.  Applied regression analysis and other multivariable methods, 3rd ed. , 1998 .

[16]  M. Lipsey.  Design sensitivity: Statistical power for applied experimental research. , 1998 .

[17]  J. Freeman,et al.  Behavioral realism as a metric of presence , 1998 .

[18]  Brenda K. Wiederhold,et al.  Fear of Flying: A Case Report Using Virtual Reality Therapy with Physiological Monitoring , 1998, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

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

[20]  Holger Regenbrecht,et al.  Embodied Presence in Virtual Environments , 1999, Visual Representations and Interpretations.

[21]  Mary C. Whitton,et al.  Walking > walking-in-place > flying, in virtual environments , 1999, SIGGRAPH.

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

[23]  de H Huib Ridder,et al.  Measuring temporal variations in presence , 2000 .

[24]  J. Freeman,et al.  Presence: Is your heart in it? , 2001 .

[25]  Mary C. Whitton,et al.  Passive haptics significantly enhances virtual environments , 2001 .

[26]  F. Brooks,et al.  Physiological Reaction as an Objective Measure of Presence in Virtual Environments , 2001 .

[27]  Rod McCall,et al.  Measuring presence in virtual environments , 2004, CHI EA '04.