Sound Research WIKINDX

Presence is "an illusory shift in point of view"

"Given the expectations of current media-aware audiences, attaining an illusion of reality will often require excursions into the hyperreal, presenting a more 'vivid' copy of reality than reality itself has to offer."

A footnote on HMDs describes "its immersive characteristics, sealing off the physical environment and presenting the senses with an inclusive virtual environment"

"Characteristics of the medium can be subdivided into media form and media content variables. Both of these are known to have a significant impact on the individual's sense of presence such that, depending on the levels of appropriate, rich, consistent, and captivating sensory stimulation, varying levels of presence can be produced."

"[...] game audio has the over-arching role of supporting a user system while also supporting the sense of presence in a fictional world."

"The perception of time and, in particular, synchrony between the senses is not straightforward because there is no dedicated sense organ that registers time in an absolute scale. Moreover, to perceive synchrony, the brain has to deal with differences in physical (outside the body) and neural (inside the body) transmission times. Sounds, for example, travel through air much slower than visual information does (i.e., 300,000,000 m/s for vision vs. 330 m/s for audition), whereas no physical transmission time through air is involved for tactile stimulation as it is presented directly at the body surface. The neural processing time also differs between the senses, and it is typically slower for visual than it is for auditory stimuli (approximately 50 vs. 10 ms, respectively), whereas for touch, the brain may have to take into account where the stimulation originated from as the traveling time from the toes to the brain is longer than from the nose (the typical conduction velocity is 55 m/s, which results in a ∼30 ms difference between toe and nose when this distance is 1.60 m; Macefield et al. 1989). Because of these differences, one might expect that for audiovisual events, only those occurring at the so-called “horizon of simultaneity” (Poppel 1985; Poppel et al. 1990)—a distance of approximately 10 to 15 m from the observer—will result in the approximate synchronous arrival of auditory and visual information at the primary sensory cortices. Sounds will arrive before visual stimuli if the audiovisual event is within 15 m from the observer, whereas vision will arrive before sounds for events farther away. Although surprisingly, despite these naturally occurring lags, observers perceive intersensory synchrony for most multisensory events in the external world, and not only for those at 15 m."

Macefield G, Gandevia S.C, Burke D. Conduction velocities of muscle and cutaneous afferents in the upper and lower limbs of human subjects. Brain. 1989;112(6):1519–32.

Pöppel E. Grenzes des bewusstseins, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstal, translated as Mindworks: Time and Conscious Experience. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; 1985. 1988.

Poppel E, Schill K, von Steinbuchel N. Sensory integration within temporally neutral systems states: A hypothesis. Naturwissenschaften. 1990;77(2):89–91.

Definition of sense of embodiment: "SoE toward a body B is the sense that emerges when B’s properties are processed as if they were the properties of one’s own biological body."

"organisms are communicative structures. What organisms can distinguish is dependent on the design of their structure and on the work of their functional cycles. The latter, which consist of perception and operation, are responsible for creating the Umwelt. Umwelt is an entailment of the perceptual and operational world (Merkwelt and Wirkwelt)."

Points out that the term virtual presence refers to presence caused by the technology of virtual reality in order to differentiate it from the term telepresence (first used in the 1980s and 1990s to refer to the feeling of being physically transported – or being there – to a remote physical [not virtual] location) (Sheridan 1992; Minsky 1980).

Minsky, M. (1980). Telepresence. Omni, 45–51.
Sheridan, T. B. (1992). Musings on telepresence and virtual presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 1(1), 120–127.

Presence "is desirable, because the special information-processing mechanism enabling subjective perception of the world out of pure sensation has given humans enormous survival advantages in the course of human evolution"

"If sensation is the sole basis for the perception of physical objects, the feeling of compelling reality will not be possible unless all human sensory cues are provided. Thanks to the subjective nature of the perception process, however, people can sometimes have the feeling of presence despite the poverty of sensory stimuli in current media. That is, imagination and other information-processing mechanisms simulate the remaining sensory cues and create a compelling sense of reality. That might be the reason people can sometimes feel a strong sense of presence based solely on cognitive stimuli for imagination (e.g., written narratives) without receiving any direct sensory stimuli."

Defines three types of presence:

physical presence: "a psychological state in which virtual (para-authentic or artificial) physical objects are experienced as actual physical objects in either sensory or nonsensory way"
social presence: "a psychological state in which virtual (para-authentic or artificial) social actors are experienced as actual social actors in either sensory or nonsensory ways"
self presence: "a psychological state in which virtual (para-authentic or artificial) self/selves are experienced as the actual self in either sensory or nonsensory ways"

Presence is "a psychological state in which virtual (para-authentic or artificial) objects are experienced as actual objects in either sensory or nonsensory ways."

Discusses humans' natural tendency to accept incoming stimuli as sourced from reality first and only then to reject after assessment – a suggestion as to why users accept technologically mediated stimuli as real (thus presence).

"Humans are psychologically compelled to believe in relatively stable cause-effect structures in the world, even though they are not a perfect reflection of reality."

Noting that, despite knowing that virtual objects and effects are not real, "people keep using their old brains" and so their first reaction is to treat virtuality as real.

"Draper et al. (1998) define telepresence as “the perception of presence within a physically remote or simulated site,” which suggests, de facto, that presence is a valid construct in relation to experience of the real (physical) world. This is a contentious issue, a full discussion of which is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is our view that presence is a more useful concept when it is limited to the study of users’ experiences of mediated presentations. Real-world experience can be adequately described in terms of more traditional psychological constructs: such as attention, involvement, and arousal, to name but a few. There seems little to gain from describing people’s everyday experience in terms of presence [...] At the very least, though, real-world experience is useful to presence research insofar as it serves as a benchmark, or standard, against which to subjectively judge levels of presence in mediated environments."

Draper, J. V., Kaber, D. B., & Usher, J. M. (1998). Telepresence. Human Factors, 40, 354 –375.

Make a difference between social presence and spatial presence (thus different display configurations required) (Mantovani & Riva 1999). However, they then come back to defining presence as spatial location only.

Mantovani, G., & Riva, G. (1999). "Real" presence: How different ontologies generate different criteria for presence, telepresence, and virtual presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 8(5), 540–550.

"[The] potential accuracy of all perception and communication is offset by physical engagement – by locomotion to and through the source of perceptions. If we want to really know if that shimmering image in the sand can quench our thirst, we need to travel to it."

Some mention of sound in relation to presence (other-presence): "sounds can also be experienced as an indication of the immediate presence of another even if it is not possible to determine where that other is. Every rustling or scuffling noise can indicate the immediately experienced presence of another."

A review (in 1997) of various definitions of presence: "Each represents one or more aspects of what we define here formally as presence: the perceptual illusion of non-mediation."

Externalization or distal attribution: "that most of our perceptual experience, though originating with stimulation of our sense organs, is referred to external space beyond the limits of our sensory organs."

"for vision and audition [...] the resulting perceptions are always mediate, never direct, for the central nervous system constructs what is perceived."

Acknowledging that the operator of a teleoperation system experiences sensory information from remote/simulated environment and physical environment and that this often conflicts, Loomis makes use of Polyani's notions of subsidiary awareness and focal awareness. Where sensory stimulation from the remote environment is insufficient for true presence, the operator experiences a subsidiary awareness of the physical environment and/or teleoperation system he/she is actually in/using despite a focal awareness of the remote environment.

True telepresence is not possible as it is not possible to present the operator with precisely the same sensory stimulation they would receive were they to be actually in the remote environment.

"The suggestion that color is "mentally projected" onto physical objects [...] is clearly nonsensical."

In combining ecological perception with cultural psychology, the authors explain the resolution of everyday ambiguity: "Culture is the device that human societies use to reduce the ambiguity intrinsic to everyday situations: the space in which actors' interests and environmental affordances meet is defined and shaped by the mediation exerted by artifacts [...] Ambiguity of everyday situations does not disappear, but it is made tractable by the presence of the cultural tools and by the social negotiations of the meaning of situations that these tools make possible. This can happen to the extent to which an (at least partially) shared frame of reference exists among the participants."

Disputing Schloerb's (1995) "definition of objective presence as success in completing a task" the authors point out that it is possible to be present in an environment attempting to repair an engine but being unable to fix it. (Perhaps lacking the knowledge or tools to do so.)

Schloerb, D. W. (1995). A quantitative measure of telepresence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 4(1), 64–80.

Objects that are not present, are unreal.

"Perception does not give me truth like geometry but presences"

"The background continues beneath the figure, is seen beneath the figure even though it is covered over by it. This phenomenon (which encompasses the entire problem of the presence of the object) is itself also concealed by empiricist philosophy, which treats this part nof the background as invisible in accordance with a physiological definition of vision and reduces it to the status of a simple sensible quality by supposing that it is presented through an image, that is, through a weakened sensation. . . . objects that do not make up part of our visual field can only be present to us through images . . . If we abandon the empiricist premise that prioritizes the content of perception, we are free to acknowledge the strange mode of existence of the object behind us."

"The object is seen from all times just as it is seen from all places, and by the same means, namely the horizon structure. The present still holds in hand the immediate past, but without positing it as an object, and since this immediate past likewise retains the past that immeidately preceded it, time gone by is entirely taken up and grasped in the present. The same goes for the imminent future that will itself have its own horizon of imminence. But along with my immediate past, I also have the horizon of the future that surrounded it; that is, I have my actual present seen as the future of that past. Along with the imminent future, I also have the horizon of the past that will surround it; that is, I have my actual present as the past of that future. Thus, thanks to the double horizon of retention and protention, my present can cease to be a present that is in fact about to be carried off and destroyed by the flow of duration and can rather become a fixed and identifiable point in an objective time."

"we must not say that our body is in space, nor for that matter in time. It inhabits space and time. [In executing a complicated hand movement in air] At each moment, previous postures and movements constantly provide a standard of measure. . . . Just as it is necessarily "here," the body necessarily exists "now"; it can never become "past." . . . At each moment in a movement, the preceding instant is not forgotten, but rather is somehow fit into the present, and, in short, the present perception consists in taking up the series of previous positions that envelop each other by relying upon the current position. But the imminent position is itself enveloped in the present, and through it so too are all of those positions that will occur throughout the movement. Each moment of the movement embraces its entire expanse and, in particular, its first moment or kinetic initiation inaugurates the link between a here and a there, between a now and a future that the other moments will be limited to developing."

"My body takes possession of time and makes a past and a future exist for a present; it is not a thing, rather than suffering time, my body creates it."

"the lamp that I see exists at the same time as I do, distance is between simultaneous objects, and this simultaneity is included in the very sense of perception. . . . coexistence, which in fact defines space, is not alien to time; rather it is adherence of two phenomena to the same temporal wave. With regard to the relation between the perceived object and my perception, it does not connect them in space but outside of time; they are contemporaries."

"Within the interior and exterior horizon of the thing or the landscape there is a co-presence or a coexistence of profiles that are tied together through space and time. The natural world is the horizon of all horizons . . . But how could I have the experience of the world as an actually existing individual, since none of the perspectival views that I have of it exhaust it, since its horizons are always open, and since, on the other hand, no form of knowledge — not even science — gives us the invariable formula of a facies totius universi [face of the whole universe]? How can anything ever be presented to us definitively since the synthesis of it is never completed, and since I can always expect to see it break apart and pass to the status of a simple illusion? . . The synthesis of horizons is essencially temporal, that is, it is not subjected to time, it does not suffer time, and it does not have to overcome time; but rather, it merges with the very movement by which time goes by. Through my perceptual field with its spatial horizons, I am present to my surroundings, I coexist with all the other landscapes that extend beyond, and all of these perspectives together form a single temporal wave, an instant of the world. Through my perceptual field with its temporal horizons, I am present to my present, to the entire past that has preceded it, and to a future."

"time is neither a real process nor an actual succession in that I could limit myself simply to recording. It is born of my relation with things. In the things themselves, the future and the past are a sort of eternal pre-existence or afterlife; the water that will pass by tomorrow is currently at the source, the water that has just passed by is now a bit further down into the valley. Whatever is past of future for me is present in the world."

Discussing Husserl's conceptions of retention and protention, these being intentionalities: "Time is not a line, but rather a network of intentionalities" (p. 440).

"In a technical acceptation of the term, immersion is achieved by removing as many real world sensations as possible, and substituting these with the sensations corresponding to the VE. Immersion is by essence related to the multi-modal nature of the perceptual senses, and also to the interactive aspects of a VR experience."

IJsselsteijn, W. A., Freeman, J., & de Ridder, H. (2001). Presence: Where are we? Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 4(2), 179–182.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 11/09/2018, 17:19
Presence is "an illusory shift in point of view"
The illusion of "being there" in a virtual environment is enhanced by "more accurate reproductions and/or simulations of reality."
IJsselsteijn, W. (2003). Presence in the past: What can we learn from media history? In G. Riva, F. Davide & W. A. IJsselsteijn (Eds), Being There: Concepts, Effects and Measurements of User Presence in Synthetic Environments Vol. 5, (pp. 17–40). Amsterdam: IOS Press.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 01/11/2018, 10:43
"Given the expectations of current media-aware audiences, attaining an illusion of reality will often require excursions into the hyperreal, presenting a more 'vivid' copy of reality than reality itself has to offer."
Presents two forms of user-system interaction in VR: navigation and manipulation. The first allows for exploration of the world including looking around and moving through while the second allows for "a meaningful change" in the world.
A footnote on HMDs describes "its immersive characteristics, sealing off the physical environment and presenting the senses with an inclusive virtual environment"
"people's responses to media are not a linear product of the extent of sensory information that the medium provides, but are very much shaped by people's previous experiences with and expectations towards media. It would seem a little odd to us now if people should panic and run out of a movie theatre at the sight of an approaching train on the screen. This is because our media schemata, or knowledge representations of what media are, and are capable of, tell us what to expect from mediated experiences, including the many perceptual tricks that cinema or VR can play on us [...] media schemata may act as an attenuating factor on our initial response to take the stimulus at face value and act accordingly. Despite this clear inhibitory effect of media schemata, there are numerous examples where we still exhibit a tendency to respond to media in much the same way as we would to reality. At a non-cognitive response level, our perceptual system has simply not evolved to deal with media as something separate from reality."
IJsselsteijn, W., & Riva, G. (2003). Being there: The experience of presence in mediated environments. In G. Riva, F. Davide & W. A. IJsselsteijn (Eds), Being There: Concepts, Effects and Measurements of User Presence in Synthetic Environments Vol. 5, (pp. 3–16). Amsterdam: IOS Press.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 13/02/2019, 17:04
"Characteristics of the medium can be subdivided into media form and media content variables. Both of these are known to have a significant impact on the individual's sense of presence such that, depending on the levels of appropriate, rich, consistent, and captivating sensory stimulation, varying levels of presence can be produced."
Jørgensen, K. 2006, October 11–12, On the functional aspects of computer game audio. Paper presented at Audio Mostly 2006, Piteå, Sweden.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 20/09/2009, 10:53
"[...] game audio has the over-arching role of supporting a user system while also supporting the sense of presence in a fictional world."
Keetels, M., & Vroomen, J. (2012). Perception of synchrony between the senses. In M. M. Murray & M. T. Wallace (Eds), The Neural Bases of Multisensory Processes (pp. 147–177). Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press/Taylor & Francis.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 10/12/2023, 14:53
"The perception of time and, in particular, synchrony between the senses is not straightforward because there is no dedicated sense organ that registers time in an absolute scale. Moreover, to perceive synchrony, the brain has to deal with differences in physical (outside the body) and neural (inside the body) transmission times. Sounds, for example, travel through air much slower than visual information does (i.e., 300,000,000 m/s for vision vs. 330 m/s for audition), whereas no physical transmission time through air is involved for tactile stimulation as it is presented directly at the body surface. The neural processing time also differs between the senses, and it is typically slower for visual than it is for auditory stimuli (approximately 50 vs. 10 ms, respectively), whereas for touch, the brain may have to take into account where the stimulation originated from as the traveling time from the toes to the brain is longer than from the nose (the typical conduction velocity is 55 m/s, which results in a ∼30 ms difference between toe and nose when this distance is 1.60 m; Macefield et al. 1989). Because of these differences, one might expect that for audiovisual events, only those occurring at the so-called “horizon of simultaneity” (Poppel 1985; Poppel et al. 1990)—a distance of approximately 10 to 15 m from the observer—will result in the approximate synchronous arrival of auditory and visual information at the primary sensory cortices. Sounds will arrive before visual stimuli if the audiovisual event is within 15 m from the observer, whereas vision will arrive before sounds for events farther away. Although surprisingly, despite these naturally occurring lags, observers perceive intersensory synchrony for most multisensory events in the external world, and not only for those at 15 m." Macefield G, Gandevia S.C, Burke D. Conduction velocities of muscle and cutaneous afferents in the upper and lower limbs of human subjects. Brain. 1989;112(6):1519–32. Pöppel E. Grenzes des bewusstseins, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstal, translated as Mindworks: Time and Conscious Experience. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; 1985. 1988. Poppel E, Schill K, von Steinbuchel N. Sensory integration within temporally neutral systems states: A hypothesis. Naturwissenschaften. 1990;77(2):89–91.
Kilteni, K., Groten, R., & Slater, M. (2012). The sense of embodiment in virtual reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 21(4), 373–387.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 16/10/2018, 09:48
Definition of sense of embodiment: "SoE toward a body B is the sense that emerges when B’s properties are processed as if they were the properties of one’s own biological body."
Kull, K. (2001). Jakob von Uexküll: An introduction. Semiotica, 134(1/4), 1–59.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 02/12/2019, 16:07
"organisms are communicative structures. What organisms can distinguish is dependent on the design of their structure and on the work of their functional cycles. The latter, which consist of perception and operation, are responsible for creating the Umwelt. Umwelt is an entailment of the perceptual and operational world (Merkwelt and Wirkwelt)."
'Umwelt' stands for the subjective or 'meaningful' world of the organism.
Lee, K. M. (2004). Presence, explicated. Communication Theory, 14(1), 27–50.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 01/07/2021, 07:58
Points out that the term virtual presence refers to presence caused by the technology of virtual reality in order to differentiate it from the term telepresence (first used in the 1980s and 1990s to refer to the feeling of being physically transported – or being there – to a remote physical [not virtual] location) (Sheridan 1992; Minsky 1980). Minsky, M. (1980). Telepresence. Omni, 45–51. Sheridan, T. B. (1992). Musings on telepresence and virtual presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 1(1), 120–127.
Follows others in arguing that, as perception is a mediation of sensation, there is mediation at play in the perception of both nautral (first-order mediated experience) and technological worlds (second-order mediated experiences).
Presence "is desirable, because the special information-processing mechanism enabling subjective perception of the world out of pure sensation has given humans enormous survival advantages in the course of human evolution"
"The term actual simply means that something can potentially be experienced by human sensory systems without using technology. It does not require the existence of something independent of human mentality; instead, it requires only the possibility of experiencing something without using any human-made technology. Therefore, the categorization of objects according to virtual and actual criteria is not concerned with the validity of rationalistic assumption that the subjective mental world exists independent of an objective physical world (the assumption behind cogito ergo sum). Nor does the categorization succumb to solipsism, which denies the existence of any objective reality and maintains only purely subjective reality, because it acknowledges the existence of actual objects independent of subjective reality [...] Real experience is the sensory experience of actual objects. Hallucination is the nonsensory experience of imaginary objects. Virtual experience is the sensory or nonsensory experience of virtual (either para-authentic or artificial) objects. Presence research is about virtual experience and has nothing to do with real experience of hallucination"
"If sensation is the sole basis for the perception of physical objects, the feeling of compelling reality will not be possible unless all human sensory cues are provided. Thanks to the subjective nature of the perception process, however, people can sometimes have the feeling of presence despite the poverty of sensory stimuli in current media. That is, imagination and other information-processing mechanisms simulate the remaining sensory cues and create a compelling sense of reality. That might be the reason people can sometimes feel a strong sense of presence based solely on cognitive stimuli for imagination (e.g., written narratives) without receiving any direct sensory stimuli."
"a virtual environment reacts to users as if they were there"
Defines three types of presence: physical presence: "a psychological state in which virtual (para-authentic or artificial) physical objects are experienced as actual physical objects in either sensory or nonsensory way" social presence: "a psychological state in which virtual (para-authentic or artificial) social actors are experienced as actual social actors in either sensory or nonsensory ways" self presence: "a psychological state in which virtual (para-authentic or artificial) self/selves are experienced as the actual self in either sensory or nonsensory ways"
"Authenticity, by definition, is more likely to depend on prior cognition of the valid connection be- tween virtual and actual objects [...] Objects can be artificial at one point and then can become para-authentic at another point. For example, an artificial house (e.g., a cyber model house) becomes para-authentic when an actual house is constructed according to the cyber model’s specifications and users of the cyber model are clearly aware of the existence of the actual house."
Presence is "a psychological state in which virtual (para-authentic or artificial) objects are experienced as actual objects in either sensory or nonsensory ways."
Lee, K. M. (2004). Why presence occurs: Evolutionary psychology, media equation, and presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 13(4), 494–505.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 15/11/2018, 11:30
Discusses humans' natural tendency to accept incoming stimuli as sourced from reality first and only then to reject after assessment – a suggestion as to why users accept technologically mediated stimuli as real (thus presence).
Asks "why humans usually do not notice the virtuality of incoming stimuli and feel presence with little mental effort."
"Humans are psychologically compelled to believe in relatively stable cause-effect structures in the world, even though they are not a perfect reflection of reality."
A lack of knowledge of cause-effect structures poses a survival threat.
Noting that, despite knowing that virtual objects and effects are not real, "people keep using their old brains" and so their first reaction is to treat virtuality as real.
Discussing the reason why high fidelity of image is not necessary to presence – much of what we see is actually from peripheral vision and thus out of focus.
Lessiter, J., Freeman, J., Keogh, E., & Davidoff, J. (2001). A cross-media presence questionnaire: The ITC-sense of presence inventory. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 10(3), 282–297.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 11/09/2018, 17:19
"Draper et al. (1998) define telepresence as “the perception of presence within a physically remote or simulated site,” which suggests, de facto, that presence is a valid construct in relation to experience of the real (physical) world. This is a contentious issue, a full discussion of which is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is our view that presence is a more useful concept when it is limited to the study of users’ experiences of mediated presentations. Real-world experience can be adequately described in terms of more traditional psychological constructs: such as attention, involvement, and arousal, to name but a few. There seems little to gain from describing people’s everyday experience in terms of presence [...] At the very least, though, real-world experience is useful to presence research insofar as it serves as a benchmark, or standard, against which to subjectively judge levels of presence in mediated environments." Draper, J. V., Kaber, D. B., & Usher, J. M. (1998). Telepresence. Human Factors, 40, 354 –375.
Summarizing determinants of presence: media form: extent of sensory information provided, user's degree of control in positioning sensory systems in the environment, user's ability to modify the environment media content: theme, narrative or story user characteristics: individual characteristics affecting presence.
Make a difference between social presence and spatial presence (thus different display configurations required) (Mantovani & Riva 1999). However, they then come back to defining presence as spatial location only. Mantovani, G., & Riva, G. (1999). "Real" presence: How different ontologies generate different criteria for presence, telepresence, and virtual presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 8(5), 540–550.
Levinson, P. (2003). REALSPACE: The fate of physical presence in the digital age, on and off planet. London: Routledge.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 05/11/2018, 08:58
"[The] potential accuracy of all perception and communication is offset by physical engagement – by locomotion to and through the source of perceptions. If we want to really know if that shimmering image in the sand can quench our thirst, we need to travel to it."
Lindemann, G., & Schünemann, D. (2020). Presence in digital spaces: A phenomenological concept of presence in mediatized communication. Human Studies, 43, 627–651.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 08/01/2024, 09:00
Some mention of sound in relation to presence (other-presence): "sounds can also be experienced as an indication of the immediate presence of another even if it is not possible to determine where that other is. Every rustling or scuffling noise can indicate the immediately experienced presence of another."
Lombard, M., & Ditton, T. (1997). At the heart of it all: The concept of presence. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 3(2).
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 14/08/2020, 16:02
A review (in 1997) of various definitions of presence: "Each represents one or more aspects of what we define here formally as presence: the perceptual illusion of non-mediation."
Loomis, J. M. (1992). Distal attribution and presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 1(1), 113–119.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 11/09/2018, 17:19
Externalization or distal attribution: "that most of our perceptual experience, though originating with stimulation of our sense organs, is referred to external space beyond the limits of our sensory organs."
There is a phenomenal world that can be divided into 'self' and 'nonself' – the physical self is closely tied to the phenomenal self but not necessarily (e.g. phantom limbs). Distal attribution is the process of identifying sensory experience with a phenomenally external space or the nonself. This identification (and thus distal attribution) results when afference (sensory input) is "lawfully related" to efference (motorsensory actions) – e.g. I do something and the sensory feedback I get accords with that action. Loomis hypothesizes that "attribution to self occurs when afference and efference are completely unrelated or independent."
"for vision and audition [...] the resulting perceptions are always mediate, never direct, for the central nervous system constructs what is perceived."
In arguing that distal attribution re telepresence is most clearly felt when the operators have become skilled with the equipment, Loomis suggests that with regard to a lawful relationship between efference and afference, the operator must be able to model this relationship. This 'linkage' becomes transparent with experience and this leads to the externalization of the distal environment.
Acknowledging that the operator of a teleoperation system experiences sensory information from remote/simulated environment and physical environment and that this often conflicts, Loomis makes use of Polyani's notions of subsidiary awareness and focal awareness. Where sensory stimulation from the remote environment is insufficient for true presence, the operator experiences a subsidiary awareness of the physical environment and/or teleoperation system he/she is actually in/using despite a focal awareness of the remote environment. True telepresence is not possible as it is not possible to present the operator with precisely the same sensory stimulation they would receive were they to be actually in the remote environment.
"presence and distal attribution beyond the limits of some extending device (probe, teleoperator, virtual display) are not fundamentally different phenomena. Rather, they differ only that true presence occurs when the sensory data support only the interpretation of being somewhere other than where the sense organs are located; whereas, distal attribution to a remote location occurs when the sensory data represent both the remote location and that device or linkage that connects the observer with that remote location."
Loomis, J. M. (2016). Presence in virtual reality and everyday life: Immersion within a world of representation. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 25(2), 169–174.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 06/02/2019, 17:12
"The suggestion that color is "mentally projected" onto physical objects [...] is clearly nonsensical."
Mantovani, G., & Riva, G. (1999). "Real" presence: How different ontologies generate different criteria for presence, telepresence, and virtual presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 8(5), 540–550.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 27/02/2022, 19:21
In combining ecological perception with cultural psychology, the authors explain the resolution of everyday ambiguity: "Culture is the device that human societies use to reduce the ambiguity intrinsic to everyday situations: the space in which actors' interests and environmental affordances meet is defined and shaped by the mediation exerted by artifacts [...] Ambiguity of everyday situations does not disappear, but it is made tractable by the presence of the cultural tools and by the social negotiations of the meaning of situations that these tools make possible. This can happen to the extent to which an (at least partially) shared frame of reference exists among the participants."
Presence is always mediated by both physical and conceptual tools that belong to a given culture. Physical presence in an environment is in principle no more "real" or more true than telepresence or immersion in a simulated virtual environment. The criterion for presence does not consist of simply reproducing the conditions of physical presence but in constructing environments in which actors may function in an ecologically valid way. We accept the emphasis of the ecological approach on the adaptive and active dimensions of perception. Action is essentially social (as knowledge in everyday situations is often distributed among various actors and various artifacts). Human presence in a given situation requires freedom of movement both in the physical environment (locomotion) and in the social environment composed of other actors and objects (task and goal definition, negotiation of the course of action to choose).
Disputing Schloerb's (1995) "definition of objective presence as success in completing a task" the authors point out that it is possible to be present in an environment attempting to repair an engine but being unable to fix it. (Perhaps lacking the knowledge or tools to do so.) Schloerb, D. W. (1995). A quantitative measure of telepresence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 4(1), 64–80.
Markosian, N. (2004). A defense of presentism. Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, 1, 47–82.
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 09/03/2023, 08:12
Objects that are not present, are unreal.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964). The primacy of perception. Evanstown and London: Northwestern University Press.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 23/09/2016, 12:15
"Perception does not give me truth like geometry but presences"
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2014). Phenomenology of perception. D. A. Landes, Trans. New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1945).
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 08/01/2024, 07:05
"The background continues beneath the figure, is seen beneath the figure even though it is covered over by it. This phenomenon (which encompasses the entire problem of the presence of the object) is itself also concealed by empiricist philosophy, which treats this part nof the background as invisible in accordance with a physiological definition of vision and reduces it to the status of a simple sensible quality by supposing that it is presented through an image, that is, through a weakened sensation. . . . objects that do not make up part of our visual field can only be present to us through images . . . If we abandon the empiricist premise that prioritizes the content of perception, we are free to acknowledge the strange mode of existence of the object behind us."
Paraphrasing Descartes in his Meditations: "The experience of the present is the experience of a being who is established once and for all, and who nothing could ever prevent from having existed."
"The object is seen from all times just as it is seen from all places, and by the same means, namely the horizon structure. The present still holds in hand the immediate past, but without positing it as an object, and since this immediate past likewise retains the past that immeidately preceded it, time gone by is entirely taken up and grasped in the present. The same goes for the imminent future that will itself have its own horizon of imminence. But along with my immediate past, I also have the horizon of the future that surrounded it; that is, I have my actual present seen as the future of that past. Along with the imminent future, I also have the horizon of the past that will surround it; that is, I have my actual present as the past of that future. Thus, thanks to the double horizon of retention and protention, my present can cease to be a present that is in fact about to be carried off and destroyed by the flow of duration and can rather become a fixed and identifiable point in an objective time."
"The body, then, is not just another external object that could offer the peculiarity of always being there. If it is permanent, then this has to do with an absolute permanence that serves as the basis for the relative permanence of objects that can be eclipsed, that is, of trued objects. The presence and the absence of external objects are only variations within a primordial field of presence, a perceptual domain over which my body has power."
"we must not say that our body is in space, nor for that matter in time. It inhabits space and time. [In executing a complicated hand movement in air] At each moment, previous postures and movements constantly provide a standard of measure. . . . Just as it is necessarily "here," the body necessarily exists "now"; it can never become "past." . . . At each moment in a movement, the preceding instant is not forgotten, but rather is somehow fit into the present, and, in short, the present perception consists in taking up the series of previous positions that envelop each other by relying upon the current position. But the imminent position is itself enveloped in the present, and through it so too are all of those positions that will occur throughout the movement. Each moment of the movement embraces its entire expanse and, in particular, its first moment or kinetic initiation inaugurates the link between a here and a there, between a now and a future that the other moments will be limited to developing."
"The subject of sensation is neither a thinker who notices a quality, nor an inert milieu that would be affected or modified by it; the subject of sensation is a power that is born together with a certain existential milieu or that is synchronized with it. . . . This is just as the sacrament does not merely symbolize, in a sensible way, an operation of Grace, but is the real presence of God and makes this presence occupy a fragment of space and to communicate it to those who eat the bread . . . In the same way, the sensible does not merely have a motor and vital signification, but is rather nothing other than a certain manner of being in the world that is proposed to us from a point in space, that our body takes up and adopts if it is capable, and sensation is, literally, communion."
"My body takes possession of time and makes a past and a future exist for a present; it is not a thing, rather than suffering time, my body creates it."
"there would be no present [. . .] if perception did not, to speak like Hegel, preserve a past in its present depth, and did not condense that past into the present."
"the lamp that I see exists at the same time as I do, distance is between simultaneous objects, and this simultaneity is included in the very sense of perception. . . . coexistence, which in fact defines space, is not alien to time; rather it is adherence of two phenomena to the same temporal wave. With regard to the relation between the perceived object and my perception, it does not connect them in space but outside of time; they are contemporaries."
"Things coexist in space because they are present to the same perceiving subject and enveloped in a single temporal wave."
"Within the interior and exterior horizon of the thing or the landscape there is a co-presence or a coexistence of profiles that are tied together through space and time. The natural world is the horizon of all horizons . . . But how could I have the experience of the world as an actually existing individual, since none of the perspectival views that I have of it exhaust it, since its horizons are always open, and since, on the other hand, no form of knowledge — not even science — gives us the invariable formula of a facies totius universi [face of the whole universe]? How can anything ever be presented to us definitively since the synthesis of it is never completed, and since I can always expect to see it break apart and pass to the status of a simple illusion? . . The synthesis of horizons is essencially temporal, that is, it is not subjected to time, it does not suffer time, and it does not have to overcome time; but rather, it merges with the very movement by which time goes by. Through my perceptual field with its spatial horizons, I am present to my surroundings, I coexist with all the other landscapes that extend beyond, and all of these perspectives together form a single temporal wave, an instant of the world. Through my perceptual field with its temporal horizons, I am present to my present, to the entire past that has preceded it, and to a future."
"My gaze falls upon a living body performing an action and the objects that surround it immediately receive a new layer of signification: they are no longer merely what I could do with them, they are also what this behavior is about to do with them. A vortex forms around the perceived body into which my world is drawn and, so to speak, sucked in: to this extent, my world is no longer merely mine, it is no longer present only to me, it is present to X, to this other behavior that begins to take shape in it."
"time is neither a real process nor an actual succession in that I could limit myself simply to recording. It is born of my relation with things. In the things themselves, the future and the past are a sort of eternal pre-existence or afterlife; the water that will pass by tomorrow is currently at the source, the water that has just passed by is now a bit further down into the valley. Whatever is past of future for me is present in the world."
Merleau-Ponty defines the field of presence as "the originary experience where time and its dimensions appear in person without any intervening distance and with an ultimate evidentness."
Discussing Husserl's conceptions of retention and protention, these being intentionalities: "Time is not a line, but rather a network of intentionalities" (p. 440).
"each present reaffirms the presence of the entire past that it drives away, and anticipates the presence of the entire future or the "to-come" [l'à-venir] . . . the present is not locked within itself but transcends itself toward a future and toward a past."
Mestre, D. R. 2005. Immersion and presence. France: Movement & Perception, CNRS & University of the Mediterranean. [Article]
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 29/01/2018, 15:29
"In a technical acceptation of the term, immersion is achieved by removing as many real world sensations as possible, and substituting these with the sensations corresponding to the VE. Immersion is by essence related to the multi-modal nature of the perceptual senses, and also to the interactive aspects of a VR experience."

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