Abstract

Arguably the most important characteristic of virtual reality (VR) is its ability to induce feelings of presence. Still, research has remained inconclusive on how presence is affected by human factors such as emotion and agency. Here we adopt a novel design to investigate their effects by testing virtual environments inducing either happiness or fear, with or without user agency. Results from 121 participants showed that the dominant emotion induced by a virtual environment is positively correlated with presence. In addition, agency had a significant positive effect on presence and, furthermore, moderated the effect of emotion on presence. We show for the first time that the effects of emotion and agency on presence are not straightforward but they can be modeled by separating design factors from subjective measures. We discuss how these findings can explain seemingly conflicting results of related work and their implications for VR design.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Subtitle of host publicationMaking Waves, Combining Strengths
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages1-13
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9781450380966
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 May 2021
Event2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths, CHI 2021 - Virtual, Online, Japan
Duration: 8 May 202113 May 2021

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Conference

Conference2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths, CHI 2021
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityVirtual, Online
Period8/05/2113/05/21

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported and partly funded by the Centre for the Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications (CAMERA 2.0; EP/T022523/1) at the University of Bath.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 ACM.

Keywords

  • Agency
  • Emotion
  • Presence
  • Virtual reality

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
  • Software

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