Five Theses on the Book Problem : Presence in Books , Film and VR

Presence in virtual environments Presence is usually defined as the subjective sense of being and acting in a virtual environment (Slater, Usoh, & Steed, 1994). It has been shown that presence depends on certain features of the virtual environment, for instance which interactions are possible, and which interaction techniques are used (Regenbrecht & Schubert, 2002). A common assumption in research on the sense of presence is that the better the technical immersion of the user in terms of sensory fidelity, real time, field of view and picture quality, the higher the experienced presence. In short, the experienced sense of presence is seen as a function of the quality of immersion. Comparisons of different VR systems have confirmed this hypothesis (e.g., Witmer & Singer, 1998).