Affective Interactions Using Virtual Reality: The Link Between Presence and Emotions (original) (raw)
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Sense of presence in emotional virtual environments
2004
Most definitions on presence have been based on cognitive or environmental aspects. However, we think that presence, like all human experiences, is influenced by emotions. EMMA project (IST-2001-39192) is aimed to study the nature of this relationship between emotions and presence. One of the main hypotheses proposed by EMMA is that emotions may enhance presence. In this line, the main objective of the present paper is to study the differences in presence between "emotional" environments and "neutral" environments. In order to achieve this objective, we have designed a Mood Induction Procedure using VR (VR-MIP, to induce different moods (sadness, joy, anxiety and relax) in experimental subjects. Our results point out that VR-MIPs are able to induce different moods in the users. Regarding the role of mood on the sense of presence, our results show differences between emotional and neutral environments in some presence measurements.
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2004
The present study is designed to test the role of immersion and media content in the sense of presence. Specifically, we are interested in the affective valence of the virtual environments. This paper describes an experiment that compares three immersive systems (a PC monitor, a rear projected video wall, and a head-mounted display) and two virtual environments, one involving emotional content and the other not. The purpose of the experiment was to test the interactive role of these two media characteristics (form and content). Scores on two self-report presence measurements were compared among six groups of 10 people each. The results suggest that both immersion and affective content have an impact on presence. However, immersion was more relevant for non-emotional environments than for emotional ones.
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2020
Scientific knowledge is still limited about the effect of commercial virtual reality content, such as experiences developed for advertising purposes, on individual emotional experience. In addition, even though correlations between emotional responses and perceived sense of presence in virtual reality have often been reported, the relationship remains unclear. Some studies have suggested an important effect of ease of interaction on both emotions and the sense of presence, but only a few studies have scientifically explored this topic. Within this context, this study aimed to: (a) test the effect of inducing positive emotions of a commercial virtual experience developed for the promotion of an urban renewal project, (b) investigate the relationship between positive emotions and the perceived sense of presence, and (c) explore the association between the ease of interaction of the virtual experience with positive emotions and the sense of presence reported by the users. Sixty-one par...
Presence as an emotional experience
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 1999
Presence or the sense of "being there" has been discussed in the literature as an essential, defining aspect of Virtual Reality (VR). The VR literature includes definitions rooted in behavioral response, signal detection theory, and philosophy, but has generally ignored the emotional aspects of experience. The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the concept of presence in terms of people's emotional engagement with reality and their environment. Emotions are an essential part of how people experience the world. Any theory of presence must take emotional factors into account. This thesis has implications about how research should be conducted to further our understanding of presence. Validated psychological techniques for assessing emotions by subjective report, behavioral observations, and facial analysis can all be applied to increase our understanding of virtual presence. Further understanding of the interaction between presence and emotional state will improve our understanding of the construct of presence as well as better inform us about how virtual environments can be applied in creating emotional effects or treating emotional disorders.
Influencing Human Affective Responses to Dynamic Virtual Environments
PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2016
Detecting and measuring emotional responses while interacting with virtual reality (VR), and assessing and interpreting their impacts on human engagement and “immersion,” are both academically and technologically challenging. While many researchers have, in the past, focused on the affective evaluation of passive environments, such as listening to music or the observation of videos and imagery, virtual realities and related interactive environments have been used in only a small number of research studies as a mean of presenting emotional stimuli. This article reports the first stage (focusing on participants' subjective responses) of a range of experimental investigations supporting the evaluation of emotional responses within a virtual environment, according to a three-dimensional (Valence, Arousal, and Dominance) model of affects, developed in the 1970s and 1980s. To populate this three-dimensional model with participants' emotional responses, an “affective VR,” capable o...
Effects of system- and media-driven immersive capabilities on presence and affective experience
Virtual Reality
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 us...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2015
Virtual reality (VR) has made its way into mainstream psychological research in the last two decades. This technology, with its unique ability to simulate complex, real situations and contexts, offers researchers unprecedented opportunities to investigate human behavior in well controlled designs in the laboratory. One important application ofVR is the investigation of pathological processes in mental disorders, especially anxiety disorders. Research on the processes underlying threat perception, fear, and exposure therapy has shed light on more general aspects of the relation between perception and emotion. Being by its nature virtual, i.e., simulation of reality, VR strongly relies on the adequate selection of specific perceptual cues to activate emotions. Emotional experiences in turn are related to presence, another important concept in VR, which describes the user's sense of being in a VR environment. This paper summarizes current research into perception of fear cues, emotion, and presence, aiming at the identification of the most relevant aspects of emotional experience in VR and their mutual relations. A special focus lies on a series of recent experiments designed to test the relative contribution of perception and conceptual information on fear in VR. This strand of research capitalizes on the dissociation between perception (bottom-up input) and conceptual information (top-down input) that is possible in VR. Further, we review the factors that have so far been recognized to influence presence, with emotions (e.g., fear) being the most relevant in the context of clinical psychology. Recent research has highlighted the mutual influence of presence and fear in VR, but has also traced the limits of our current understanding of this relationship. In this paper, the crucial role of perception on eliciting emotional reactions is highlighted, and the role of arousal as a basic dimension of emotional experience is discussed. An interoceptive attribution model of presence is suggested as a first step toward an integrative framework for emotion research in VR. Gaps in the current literature and future directions are outlined.
Research on Presence in Virtual Reality: A Survey
CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2001
Virtual Reality (VR) is starting to be used in psychological therapy around the world. However, a thorough understanding of the reason why VR is effective and what effect it has on the human psyche is still missing. Most research on this subject is related to the concept of presence. This paper gives an up-to-date overview of research in this diverse field. It starts with the most prevailing definitions and theories on presence, most of which attribute special roles for the mental process of attention and for mental models of the virtual space. A review of the phenomena thought to be effected by presence shows that there is still a strong need for research on this subject because little conclusive evidence exists regarding the relationship between presence and phenoma such as emotional responses to virtual stimuli. An investigation shows there has been substantial research for developing methods for measuring presence and research regarding factors that contribute to presence. Knowledge of these contributing factors can play a vital role in development of new VR applications, but key knowledge elements in this area are still missing.
Emotional Responses in Virtual Reality Environments
2021
The use of virtual reality (VR) technology to induce emotional responses has recently become more common in psychological studies. The majority of these studies have been restricted to seated VR experiences where the participant remains in a sedentary position. The purpose of the current thesis is to utilise room-scale VR to increase presence, agency and potency of virtual environments (VE) designed to induce embodied emotional responses. The Evaluative Space Model (ESM) [Cacciopio et. al 2012] was used as the theoretical basis for this programme of research, which was particularly concerned with avoidance responses to negative stimuli, perception of threat and negativity bias. A number of unique VEs were created using Unreal Engine 4 designed to create an illusion of height and the potential for a virtual fall as a source of threat. These VEs were supplemented by additional tracking sensors and an integrated approach to data collection wherein behavioural interactions and movements...
CyberPsychology & Behavior, 2003
Virtual reality can be used to provide phobic clients with therapeutic exposure to phobogenic stimuli. However, purpose-built therapeutic VR hardware and software can be expensive and difficult to adapt to individual client needs. In this study, inexpensive and readily adaptable PC computer games were used to provide exposure therapy to 13 phobic participants and 13 non-phobic control participants. It was found that anxiety could be induced in phobic participants by exposing them to phobogenic stimuli in therapeutic virtual environments derived from computer games (TVEDG). Assessments were made of the impact of simulator sickness and of sense of presence on the phobogenic effectiveness of TVEDGs. Participants reported low levels of simulator sickness, and the results indicate that simulator sickness had no significant impact on either anxiety or sense of presence. Group differences, correlations, and regression analyses indicate a synergistic relationship between presence and anxiety. These results do not support Slater's 1 contention that presence and emotion are orthogonal.