Presence, as a perceptual illusion of non-mediation, is a phenomenon that is often vaguely conceptualized, measured via self-report and stimulated via technological factors. This study offers a more certain conceptual framework, behavioral measure, and a contextual factor that highlights the psychological nature of this psychological state. Specifically, a Zoom-based field experiment was conducted to test whether being visually familiarized with a person before describing spatial information (images of an old dress and maze) to another person would increase a sense of social presence, and therefore a higher rate of gestures used to describe images even though they won’t be seen by the other person. As results showed, being familiarized was enough to reduce uncertainty over the other person to feel social presence and gesture at a higher rate as if the communication was face-to-face. / Media & Communication

Within the framework of ecological psychology, environments are places, defined as landscapes of affordances, or the array of potential actions that can be executed. The feedback between direct perception-action and use of affordances results in the sense of presence in place. According to previous research, increased presence has been correlated with greater attachment and connectedness with the place as well as beneficial psychological states in a campus setting. However, it is unclear what factors, such as demographics, may influence differences in engagement with campus affordances, and hence, presence among individuals. The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between campus presence, demographic factors, and social self-concept. Participants completed a survey that assessed their demographics, aspects of self-concept, degree of campus engagement and their sense of presence on campus.

One of the oft cited reasons for virtual environments is that they provide experiences with places one would never be able to visit and to perform tasks that would otherwise be dangerous, or inaccessible. The ability to become transported to another environment, such that you think you are "there," is known as presence. Existing presence literature focuses largely on the sensory aspects of virtual environment experiences. However, there is more to experience than what is sensed. This dissertation investigates the theoretical components of holistic experiences in virtual environments. In order to explore the relationship between experiential design and presence, a new evaluation tool was needed. This ultimately led to the development of the Virtual Experience Test. To validate the Virtual Experience Test, an experiment was designed that utilized subjective evaluations regarding game-play in the commercial game Mirror's Edge. Measures of experiential design, flow, and presence were taken and the relationships between the measures analyzed. The results of this research showed that environments utilizing holistic designs result in significantly higher presence. Furthermore, this study produced a validated measure of holistic experience that designers could use to evaluate their virtual environments.

This dissertation proposes a novel definition of anonymity, drawing on past definitions as well as psychological theory, to propose that pseudonymous identities can have a complex and nuanced influence in emphasizing certain personality traits when used in online discussion. This dissertation connects this definition to the Proteus Effect — the observation that individuals adopt behavior stereotypical of the avatars they use in virtual worlds (Yee & Bailenson, 2007) — to test how the presence and character of avatars in an online instant messenger influences aggression during political discussions. A 2x2 factorial experiment is used to evaluate participant aggression following small group deliberations between groups of participants assigned aggressive and unaggressive usernames and avatars, as well as accounts displaying an avatar and username vs only a username. A follow-up online experiment is used to show that similar effects of identity on behavior can be achieved simply by assigning participants to participate in similar tasks as moderators or as themselves.

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VP16 is an integral element in the HSV-1 strategy to overturn normal cellular functions and use the host machinery for the production of new virus. VP16 enhances the expression of viral immediate-early genes in the nucleus of the infected cell. By binding to the virion host shutoff protein (vhs), VP16 is able to downregulate its activity and prevent destruction of the viral transcripts. Finally, VP16 has an essential but specifically undetermined role in virus assembly. While a null mutation in VP16 correlates to a lethal defect in virus assembly, recent work has revealed that the C-terminal acidic activation domain of VP16 is not essential to virus survival. Viral mutants containing 422 and 379 amino acid tail-deleted derivatives of VP16 are viable. We have constructed a viable viral mutant which encodes a 369 amino acid VP16, revealing that the N-terminal 369 amino acids of VP16 retain a function which is essential to virus survival. The viral mutants encoding truncated VP16 derivatives displayed a characteristic preference for growth on a cell line which supplied full length VP16 in 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴. Furthermore, the preference for growth on the complementing cell line became more apparent as VP16 was progressively truncated from the C-terminus. To determine if full length VP16 was aiding these virtues in attenuating vhs activity or in performing a structural role in the presence of vhs, we constructed double mutant viruses encoding the truncated VP16s and containing an inactivating mutation in the vhs locus (ΔSma). The elimination of vhs activity and/or vhs-VP16 binding alleviated the preference for growth on the complementing cell line in these viruses. Thus, while the acidic activation domain of VP16 is not essential for viral replication in tissue culture, it clearly confers a growth advantage to the virus. The viral mutants constructed here will prove useful in understanding the significance of the interaction between VP16 and vhs. / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)

Various forms of presenting content via computer differ in the number and quality of visual and verbal cues. Many of these cues such as eye contact, tone of voice, appearance, facial expressions, proximity, and gestures have been found to be beneficial to the learning process. This study seeks to uncover what effects multimedia instruction, which contain a high degree of visual and verbal cues, compared to multimedia instruction, which contains a low degree of visual and verbal cues, may have on college students perception of social presence, satisfaction with their instruction, motivation, and achievement. The relationships among these dependent variables were also investigated. One hundred and fifty students were randomly assigned to five treatment groups. The treatment groups received three computer based multimedia lessons that included either full visual and verbal cues (video), limited visual and full verbal cues (still picture with audio), limited visual cues and no verbal cues (still picture and text), no visual cues and full verbal cues (audio only), or no visual or verbal cues (text only). Results show no significant differences among treatment groups regarding social presence, motivation, satisfaction, and achievement. Significant correlations were found between social presence and satisfaction; social presence and motivation; satisfaction and motivation; and motivation and achievement. Correlations for social presence and achievement, and satisfaction and achievement were not significant. This study suggests that visual and verbal cues in multimedia may not be important for student learning. Further research using different lesson content and a revised social presence scale is encouraged. / Ph. D.

Virtual reality (VR) involves an attempt to create an illusion that the user of the VR system is actually present in a synthetic (usually computer-generated) environment. Little is known about how various system parameters affect the illusion of presence in a virtual environment (VE). In particular, there seem to be very little quantitative data on which to base VR system design decisions. Also, while presence (or immersion) in VEs is a primary goal of VR, not much is known about how this variable affects task performance. The goal of this research was to provide a ratio-scale measure of perceived presence in a VE, to explore the effects of a number of environmental parameters on this measure and construct empirical models of these effects, and to relate perceived presence to user performance. This was done by manipulating eleven independent variables in a series of three experiments. The independent variables manipulated were scene update rate, visual display resolution, field of view, sound, textures, head-tracking, stereopsis, virtual personal risk, number of possible interactions, presence of a second user, and environmental detail. Participants performed a set of five tasks in the VE and rated perceived presence at the end of each set using the technique of free-modulus magnitude estimation. The amount of time spent in the VE was also recorded. The results indicate that the VR system parameters manipulated and analyzed in this research did affect participants' subjective feeling of presence in the VE. Field of view, sound, and head-tracking showed the largest effects. Other significant effects found were those of visual display resolution, texture-mapping, stereopsis, and the presence of a second user. Free-modulus magnitude estimation worked well as a measure of perceived presence. A positive relationship was found between perceived presence and task performance, but this relationship was relatively weak. Second-order empirical models were constructed that predicted perceived presence with moderate success and, with less success, task performance. / Ph. D.