Responsive environments, place and presence

This paper examines the effect that changing arena (i.e. an immersive CAVE or head mounted display) and adding an augmented barrier has on the sense of place and presence in two photo-realistic virtual environments. Twenty eight subjects (17 male, 11 female) mainly undergraduate students or staff took part. The paper summarises two experiments that used a range of data capture methods including the place probe, semantic differentials, distance estimates and the MEC Questionnaire. The results indicate that in non-interactive photo-realistic environments the choice of arena has an impact on the perceived ability to undertake actions, and hence sense of place and presence; with the CAVE providing a lower sense of spatial presence for certain aspects than the HMD.