{"id":9296,"date":"2018-11-08T17:14:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T17:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/cel\/?p=9296"},"modified":"2018-11-08T17:14:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T17:14:44","slug":"immersive-technologies-do-we-all-experience-immersion-in-the-same-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/flie\/2018\/11\/08\/immersive-technologies-do-we-all-experience-immersion-in-the-same-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Immersive technologies: do we all experience immersion in the same way?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The term ‘immersive’ is being increasingly\u00a0used\u00a0to\u00a0describe virtual environments and virtual reality; we read about immersive technologies, immersive learning environments and immersive worlds, for example. But what does this actually mean, and do we all experience a sense of immersion in the same way?<\/p>\n

These questions have been the subject of research for at least 20 years. One of the\u00a0seminal works looking at the relationship between the sense of presence we experience in virtual environments and our personal tendencies to become immersed was by Witmer & Singer (1998), who developed the first measurement instrument to estimate individual immersive tendencies. Since then there have been many modifications to, and discussions around, these instruments, but the basic premise remains the same; that we all have different personal tendencies to experience a psychological state of immersion as a consequence of focusing our energy and attention on a coherent set of stimuli, including reading books, watching films and playing computer games. This is now recognised as the construct of ‘immersive tendency’.<\/p>\n

So what? Well, it seems that immersive tendency is not only related to the sense of presence we feel in virtual environments, but might also influence how we learn from them. For example, Janssen et al (2016)\u00a0 found a probable relationship between immersive tendency and the effectiveness of a virtual environment for learning, and Falconer (2013) found that a sense of presence, closely connected to immersive tendency,\u00a0was one of the positive factors affecting student learning in an accident investigation role-play exercise in a virtual world.<\/p>\n

In the Virtual Avebury<\/a> (VA) project, we are interested to see if the responses we received from participants who experienced the simulation might be associated with their immersive tendencies. Practically, we couldn’t ask our participants to fill out a complete\u00a0immersive tendencies questionnaire, but we did ask a question that estimates two of the features of immersive tendency, i.e. how much they lose themselves in a book or film, and how long the effect lasts. Early analysis of this data has brought up some interesting points, so I thought I’d briefly share those here.<\/p>\n

Gender differences?<\/h3>\n

Looking at the 2 graphs in Figures 1 and 2 below, the difference\u00a0in responses between males and females is clear. The female responses were fairly consistent across the age groups, and also showed a consistent shift towards the more immersive end of the spectrum. The male responses, on the other hand, showed less consistency across the age groups and a greater variance that was centred on a generally lower immersive tendency.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Figure 1 – Percentage of female answers in each category (x) by age group (y)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Figure 2 – Percentage of male answers in each category (x) by age group (y)<\/p><\/div>\n

So, if we hypothesise that immersive tendency has a positive effect on responses to virtual environments, we might expect that:<\/p>\n