Does a Gradual Transition to the Virtual World increase Presence?

In order to increase a user’s sense of presence in an artificial environment some researchers propose a gradual transition from reality to the virtual world instead of immersing users into the virtual world directly. One approach is to start the VR experience in a virtual replica of the physical space to accustom users to the characteristics of VR, e. g., latency, reduced field of view or tracking errors, in a known environment. Although this procedure is already applied in VR demonstrations, until now it has not been verified whether the usage of such a transitional environment – as transition between real and virtual environment – increases someone’s sense of presence. We have observed subjective, physiological and behavioral reactions of subjects during a fully-immersive flight phobia experiment under two different conditions: the virtual flight environment was displayed immediately, or subjects visited a transitional environment before entering the virtual flight env...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: VR
• Authors: Frank Steinicke, Gerd Bruder, Klaus Hinrichs, Anthony Steed, Alexander L. Gerlach
• Keywords: Transitional Environment, Virtual, Virtual Reality, Virtual flight Environment, VR 2009