Presence in AR vs. VR
An interesting study on presence in AR and VR enviros I just came across, further to my seminar on Bolter’s article today:
“Comparing Differences in Presence during Social Interaction in Augmented Reality versus Virtual Reality Environments: An Exploratory Study” by Tang, A., Biocca, F., and Lim, L. (2004).
ABSTRACT: In augmented reality (AR) environments, users experience the physical environment and other users directly along with the mediated virtual objects embedded in the environment. In immersive virtual reality (VR), the user’s experience of a visual environment (and sometimes other senses) is completely mediated. The representation of the user’s body in virtual environments granted us new research territory in dualistic interaction between the mind and body: how do the virtual body and the user’s mind interact (with) one another and eventually effect the user’s behaviors in the environment? An experiment was conducted to explore the potential effect of users’ and interactant’s bodies to sense of presence in VR and AR environments. Results from the study suggest that the absence of representation of the user’s body in VR environments may lessen (her) sense of spatial presence compared with AR environments.”