Presence in virtual environments as a function of visual and auditory cues

This paper reports the results of two experiments each investigating the sense of presence within visual and auditory virtual environments. The variables for the studies included the presence or absence of head tracking, the presence or absence of stereoscopic cues, the geometric field of view (GFOV) used to design the visual display, the presence or absence of spatialized sound and the addition of spatialized versus non-spatialized sound to a stereoscopic display. In both studies, subjects were required to navigate a virtual environment and to complete a questionnaire designed to ascertain the level of presence experienced by the participant within the virtual world. The results indicated that the reported level of presence was significantly higher when head tracking and stereoscopic cues were provided, with more presence associated with a 50 and 90 degree GFOV when compared to a narrower 10 degree GFOV. Further, the addition of spatialized sound did significantly increase ones sense of presence in the virtual environment, on the other hand, the addition of spatialized sound did not increase the apparent realism of that environment.