Andrew Patrick

The Psychology of Virtual Presence

Virtual presence can be defined as an illusion of presence that is created by artificial devices, such as computer displays, headphones, etc. Virtual presence is often associated with "Virtual Reality" (VR) or " Virtual Environment" (VE) systems, where computers are used to generate objects and environments that are presented to users through a number of senses (i.e., vision, hearing, touch). In many virtual environment systems, immersive output devices (e.g., vivid head-mounted displays, stereophonic headphones) are used to stimulate the senses and people experience a compelling illusion of being somewhere they are not. Virtual presence can be considered as a special case of telepresence where the remote environment is artificially created. I spent some time a few years ago developing research ideas related to the psychology of virtual presence. My interest is to understand the mental processes associated with the illusion of artificial objects being present when they are not, the behaviour this illusion can cause, and the implications that it has for the design of technology. I have not been able to pursue these research ideas yet, and I am interested in hearing from anyone with an interest in this area.

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