Presence

Theory of Action

To be able to understand a theory you would have to cross two gulfs. The first one is the gulf of evaluation and that is the degree to which a system provides representations that can be perceived and interpreted in terms of the expectations and intentions of a user. You can really summarize it with asking yourself: What is it? The second gulf is the gulf of execution and that is the degree to which you can understand it and could be summarized to: What does it do?

Presence can be seen as six different points:

1. Presence as social richness

2. Presence as realism

3. Presence as transportation

4. Presence as immersion

5. Presence as social actor within a medium

6. Presence as medium as a social actor

When we talk about presence we talk about a psychological manifestation of the self being projected into a mediated environment in such as; loss of time, motion sickness, and seamless travel between real and virtual reality environment. Telepresence on the other hand is the ability of a technology to make you feeling like “you are there” at a remote site of operation with variables such as; full field of vision, force feedback, surround sound, and large screen size. To summarize it you could say that presence deals with the psychological aspect and that telepresence deals with technological aspect of things.

Co presence is the ability to detect presence of another quasi-intelligent being in the virtual landscape for an example it could be bombs, grenades, or other things you could pick up in a virtual environment.

Social presence is the ability to form a relationship with a Para authentic actor or avatar in a virtual environment. That relationship is usual warm and a personal interaction.

Spatial presence is the experience of a para-authentic self in a virtual environment where you can be aware about where your limbs are, the availability to reach things, and the perception of body space in that virtual reality.