Effects of system- and media-driven immersive capabilities on presence and affective experience

Standen, B, Anderson, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3389-7275, Sumich, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4333-8442 and Heym, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2414-8854, 2021. Effects of system- and media-driven immersive capabilities on presence and affective experience. Virtual Reality. ISSN 1359-4338

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Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is receiving widespread attention as a delivery tool for exposure therapies. The advantage offered by VR over traditional technology is a greater sense of presence and immersion, which magnifies user effects and enhances the effectiveness of exposure-based interventions. The current study systematically examined the basic factors involved in generating presence in VR as compared to standard technology, namely (1) system-driven factors that are exclusive to VR devices while controlling general factors such as field of view and image quality; (2) media-driven factors of the virtual environment eliciting motivational salience through different levels of arousal and valence (relaxing, exciting and fear evoking stimuli); and (3) the effects of presence on magnifying affective response. Participants (N = 14) watched 3 different emotionally salient videos (1 × fear evoking, 1 × relaxing and 1 × exciting) in both viewing modes (VR and Projector). Subjective scores of user experience were collected as well as objective EEG markers of presence (frontal alpha power, theta/beta ratio). Subjective and objective presence was significantly greater in the VR condition. There was no difference in subjective or objective presence for stimulus type, suggesting presence is not moderated by arousal, but may be reliant on activation of motivational systems. Finally, presence did not magnify feelings of relaxation or excitement, but did significantly magnify users’ experience of fear when viewing fear evoking stimuli. This is in line with previous literature showing strong links between presence and generation of fear, which is vital in the efficacy of exposure therapies.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Virtual Reality
Creators:	Standen, B., Anderson, J., Sumich, A. and Heym, N.
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:	7 October 2021
ISSN:	1359-4338
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1007/s10055-021-00579-2 DOI 1481528 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2021 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	28 Oct 2021 09:02
Last Modified:	28 Oct 2021 09:02
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/44526

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