The Influence of Realism on the Sense of Presence in Virtual Reality: Neurophysiological Insights Using EEG

One of the most crucial aspects of the user experience in virtual reality (VR) is the sense of presence. To evaluate this, both subjective and objective methods can be employed. While subjective methods are easy to implement and interpret, they may not fully capture user feedback, and the results ca...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Multimodal technologies and interaction 2024-11, Vol.8 (11), p.104
Main Authors: Safikhani, Saeed, Gattringer, Vinzenz, Schmied, Michael, Pirker, Johanna, Wriessnegger, Selina Christin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Brain
Brain research
Design
EEG
Electroencephalography
Heart rate
Influence
Mediation
Neurophysiology
presence
Questionnaires
R&D
Realism
Research & development
User behavior
User experience
Virtual reality
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Summary:One of the most crucial aspects of the user experience in virtual reality (VR) is the sense of presence. To evaluate this, both subjective and objective methods can be employed. While subjective methods are easy to implement and interpret, they may not fully capture user feedback, and the results can sometimes lack consistency. In contrast, using objective methods, such as electroencephalography (EEG), can provide more reliable insights. To investigate the influence of realism on the sense of presence, we conducted an EEG study with 21 participants who experienced two VR environments—one realistic and one non-realistic. During the study, we continuously measured their brain activity using an EEG device. Our findings showed that alteration in the level of realism in an environment can be detected through changes in brain activity. Notably, we observed that users take longer to adapt to a non-realistic environment when transitioning from a realistic scene, compared to the reverse. Although our study has limitations, such as the total number of participants, we gained valuable initial insights into how realism may influence brain activity. These findings suggest that higher realism may lead to reduced cognitive load, increased attention, improved decision-making, and suppression of irrelevant information.
ISSN:2414-4088
2414-4088
DOI:10.3390/mti8110104