Presence

Involvement is a psychological state experienced as a consequence of focusing one's energy and attention on a coherent set of stimuli or meaningfully related activities. Involvement is akin to engagement. Experiences that capture an individual's attention and are perceived as meaningful lead to more involvement.

Immersion is a psychological state characterized by perceiving oneself to be enveloped by, included in, and interacting with an environment that provides a continuous stream of stimuli and experiences. Immersion depends upon perceiving oneself as part of the virtual environment's stimulus flow--the dynamic stream of available sensory inputs and events that both influence and are influenced by the 'observers' activities. In other words, immersion is the degree in which a virtual environment engages the sensory experience of an individual. The more engaged senses, in synchrony and interactivity, the more the individual will feel immersed.

Presence is defined as the subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when one is physically situated in another. As applied to a virtual environment, presence refers to experiencing the simulated environment rather than the actual physical world. When experiencing presence, an individual may lose track of time or unconsciously forget the fact that they are in a virtual environment. Both involvement and immersion are necessary for experiencing presence.

Degree of control: In general, the more control a person has over the task environment or in interacting with the virtual environment(VE), the greater the experience of presence. This includes the ability to control the relation of sensors in the environment.

Immediacy of control: When a person acts in an environment, the consequence of that action should be appropriately apparent to the actor, affording expected continuities. Noticeable delays between action and the result should diminish the sense of presence.

Mode of control: Presence in a situation may be enhanced if the manner in which one interacts with the environment is a natural or well-practiced method for that environment. If the mode of control is artificial, or especially if it requires learning new responses in the environment, presence may be diminished until those responses become well learned.

Physical environmental modifiability: Presence should increase as one's ability to modify physical objects in that environment increases. For instance, one expects to be able to open doors, move objects, and mold clay and these experiences verify that control one has within the environment.

Anticipation: Individuals probably will experience a greater sense of presence in an environment if they are able to anticipate or predict what will happen next, whether or not it is under personal control

Physical environmental modifiability: Presence should increase as one's ability to modify physical objects in the environment increases. For instance, one expects to be able to open doors, move objects, and mold clay, and these experiences verify the control one has with the VE.

Isolation: Devices that isolate users from their actual, physical environment may increase presence in a VE. For example, a head-mounted display that isolates users from the real world may increase presence in the VE in comparison to a standard two-dimensional, flat-screen display. Headphones that reduce local ambient noise could also increase presence even when no VE- associated auditory input is provided.

Selective attention: The observer’s willingness or ability to focus on the VE stimuli and to ignore distractions that are external to the VE should increase the amount of presence experienced in that environment.

Interference awareness: Unnatural clumsy, artifact-laded interface devices interfere with the direct and effortless interpretation of and interactions with a virtual environment and hence diminish presence.

( In general, this will be dependent on the device, but also the demands being placed on the device from the experience, e.g. an experience that requires fine motor control will likely play better on the index, or high-resolution detailed graphics will play better on a Rift than a Quest, and better on a Quest 2 than a Quest 1. )