Susceptibility and Measurement Reliability

In this chapter, we report the concept and results of an empirical study that explored the effects of immersion and pictorial realism on the sense of presence in a virtual environment (VE). The VE used was similar to a typical industrial application. Seventy-seven participants each experienced one of four settings with varied combinations of immersion and pictorial realism, displayed in a projection based virtual reality system. Their sense of presence was measured using a post-exposure questionnaire developed by Schubert et al. [1]. It allows to differentiate between three presence facets — reality appraisal, involvement, and spatial presence. A repeated measurement enabled us to study the reliability of our presence data. Concerning the susceptibility of presence, our results show significant effects of both immersion and pictorial realism on two of the presence facets. Furthermore, the influence of immersion proved to be dependent on the degree of pictorial realism displayed. Practical implications of these results for the design of virtual reality systems are proposed. Finally, we point to some implications of our findings for the conceptualization of the sense of presence in virtual environments.