<p>Visitors’ expectations of museums in the modern world consist of both utilitarian and hedonic aspects. Given visitors’ diverse expectations and demands, traditional museums have taken actions to attract more visitors. Taking advantage of new technologies is the current action and trend in the museum industry. The emergence of digital museums is the reflection of this tendency, which use digital technologies such as projectors, surrounded sound, ambient lights, and multisensory cues to present a virtual environment. In the virtual environment, emotional state and sense of presence are considered to be useful to provide a more engaging experience. Therefore, this research empirically investigated digital museum visitor experience perceptions and the influence of emotional state and sense of presence on experience perceptions. The different impact of multisensory cues on experience and the relative mediation effect were also examined.</p> <p>Data were collected with a scenario-based online survey conducted through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). A split-sample approach with a total of 382 respondents was used for analysis. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used to explore visitor experience perceptions of the digital museum. Structural equation modeling was used to discover the impact of emotional state and sense of presence. One-way analysis of variance was used to compare the difference in impact of multisensory cues on overall visitor experience. This research also employed the PROCESS macro in SPSS for demonstrating the mediating effect of emotional state and sense of presence through the impact of multisensory cues on overall visitor experience. The findings of this study revealed three experience perceptions—respectively, joviality, personal escapism, and localness experiences—of digital museums. Also, this research presented the positive effect of emotional state on joviality experience and negative effect of emotional state on localness experience. In addition, a notable positive impact of sense of presence on joviality, personal escapism, and localness experience perceptions was found. No significant effect of emotional state on personal escapism was found in this research. Moreover, visual and auditory cues together were confirmed as the most powerful indicator for triggering the greatest experience level. The impact was found to be valid due to the mediating role of emotional state and sense of presence.</p> <p>This research contributed theoretically and practically to museum literature and experience research. Theoretical implications were discussed to indicate this research as the framework to measure digital museum visitor experience based on the proposed three-factor structure. Practical implications were provided for museum managers. Limitations and future research were discussed.</p>

Advertisers keep seeking new ways to target a wider audience while game developers are trying to monetize their game. This study investigates how Virtual Reality (VR) interactions influence user's sense of presence and brand awareness; specifically brand recall and brand recognition. A 2 (familiar/unfamiliar brands) x 2 (high/low game interactions) between subject design user study was created where 40 participants were recruited to participate in a self-made Virtual Reality game built in Unity. The game objective was to walk through a virtual city and locate the stadium while passing by billboards with static advertisements which the users were not informed about. The data have been collected through post and pre-experiment surveys in addition to two memory tests; brand recall and brand recognition. The results show that users that have the option to interact more with the VR environment can have a slight increase in their sense of presence as well as their recognition to both familiar and unfamiliar brands. Virtual reality in-game advertising can make advertisers unlock new audiences who can not target with traditional media while developers can unlock new revenue streams through entire gaming sessions without disrupting the user experience. / Marknadsförare letar ständigt efter nya vägar att nå ut till en bredare målgrupp samtidigt som spelutvecklare strävar efter att utveckla spel som genererar inkomster. Denna studie undersöker hur interaktioner i Virtual Reality (VR) påverkar användares känsla av närvaro och medvetenhet gällande varumärken; specifikt vad gäller varumärkesåterkallelse och varumärkesigenkänning. En 2 (kända/okända varumärken) x 2 (hög/låg spelinteraktion) mellan-ämnesdesign har använts i en användarstudie där 40 deltagare rekryterades till att delta i ett egentillverkat VR-spel skapat i Unity. Spelet gick ut på att gå genom en virtuell stad för att hitta Stadion och samtidigt passera skyltar med statisk reklam som användaren inte informerades om i förväg. Data har samlats in genom undersökningar före och efter experimentet och två minnestester har genomförts; varumärkesåterkallelse och varumärkesigenkänning. Resultaten visar att användare som har möjlighet att interagera i större utsträckning med VR-miljön kan ha en ökad känsla av närvaro och igenkänning av kända och okända varumärken. Genom att marknadsföra i VR in-game kan marknadsförare nå ut till nya målgrupper de inte når via vanlig media samtidigt som spelutvecklare kan skapa nya inkomstströmmar i spelsessioner utan att störa användarupplevelsen.

Η αίσθηση παρουσίας όπως και η αλληλεπίδραση θεωρούνται βασικά χαρακτηριστικά των συστημάτων εικονικής πραγματικότητας. Στην παρούσα εργασία έγινε η διερεύνηση αυτής της σχέσης της αίσθησης παρουσίας και της αλληλεπίδρασης σε εκπαιδευτικά εικονικά περιβάλλοντα, μέσα από ερευνητικές εργασίες, και η καταγραφή των συμπερασμάτων που προέκυψαν από αυτές. Δηλαδή, μελετήθηκε κατά πόσο ο συμμετέχων μπορεί να αισθανθεί παρών στην εικονική πραγματικότητα μέσα από την περιπλάνηση του σε χώρους, την αντιμετώπιση φαινομένων και την αλληλεπίδραση με αντικείμενα, που στην πραγματικότητα πιθανόν να μην ήταν εφικτά, και επίσης κατά πόσο μέσω της αλληλεπίδρασης και της αίσθησης παρουσίας του δίνεται η δυνατότητα να οικοδομήσει τη γνώση. / -

The ever increasing popularity and enormous growth in 3D movie industry is the stimulating phenomenon for the penetration of 3D services into home entertainment systems. Providing a third dimension gives intense visual experience to the viewers. Being a new eld, there are several researches going on to measure the end user&apos;s viewing experience. Research groups including 3D TV manufacturers, service providers and standards organizations are interested to improve user experience. Recent research in 3D video quality measurements have revealed uncertain issues as well as more well known results. Measuring the perceptual stereoscopic video quality by subjective testing can provide practical results. This thesis studies and investigate three di erent rating scales (Video Quality, Visual Discomfort and Sense of Presence) and compares them by subjective testing, combined with two viewing distances at 3H and 5H, where H is the hight of display screen. This thesis work shows that single rating scale produces the same result as three di erent scales and viewing distance has very less or no impact on Quality of Experience (QoE) of 3DTV for 3H and 5H distances for symmetric coding impairments. / indirajithv@gmail.com

Denna studie har undersökt effekterna som spatiala och diegetiska användargränssnitt har på känslan av närvaro i VR-miljöer för att lokalisera fallgropar och bidra till att fastställa uppdaterade designkonventioner vid utveckling av VR-applikationer. Introduktionen ger en överblick över hur arbetet gått till och vad frågeställningen varit. I bakgrunden förklaras och definieras viktiga termer samt fokus för arbetet. Därefter beskrivs metoden som nyttjades under undersökningen. Två artefakter togs fram i samband med undersökningen. Utvecklingsprocessen av dessa artefakter beskrivs i kapitel 4: genomförande. Artefakterna kombinerades med semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer och observationer för att samla in data till slutsatserna. Från datan som samlades in kunde det utläsas att det diegetiska användargränssnittet verkade ha en positiv inverkan på användarnas känsla av närvaro i VR-miljön samtidigt som det spatiala var lättare och effektivare att använda. Framtida forskning kan använda denna studie som stöd för att utforska användargränssnitt i fler genrer, användningsområden och applikationer inom VR.

This paper investigates problems connected to measuring presence in virtual environments through analyzing an investigation about what importance the level of detail has for the sense of presence. This is done by performing an experiment, testing participants’ sense of presence in two versions of one scenario where one has a high level of details and one has a low level of details. To measure the participants’ level of presence two methods were used, one subjective method and one objective method. The result of the experiment showed that the level of details doesn’t have a significant importance for the sense of presence which surprised both us and our employer. A problem found surrounding the measuring of presence was that there are different levels of presence which in turn require different methods of measurement. The challenge lies in identifying what kind of presence you want to measure and then base the method on that. Subjective presence requires subjective measures and objective presence require objective measures. Also, it is possible that presence may not always be the thing to measure when it comes to user experience in a virtual environment. The purpose of the virtual environment needs to be identified before one can decide whether the sense of presence is relevant or not. When virtual reality is used in commercial purposes there are probably other aspects that are more important than the user’s sense of presence.

E' ben noto che la dimensione affettiva è una componente importante dell'esperienza mediata e molti studi dimostrano l'abilità dei media interattivi nell'induzione di emozioni. Ciò nonostante, è meno chiaro come manipolare le caratteristiche dei media per indurre risposte emozionali specifiche. In particolare questo è vero per un medium emergente, qual la Realtà Virtuale, la cui caratteristica principale è l'abilità di indurre una sensazione di “presenza” nell'utilizzatore che fa esperienza del mondo generato dal computer. Noi abbiamo investigato la relazione esistente tra processi comunicativi mediati, emozioni e “sensazione di esserci” (senso di presenza) in esperienze mediate, attraverso tre studi sperimentali che miravano a: 1) manipolare e verificare l'impatto delle caratteristiche della RV: la narrativa e le caratteristiche dell'ambiente virtuale; 2) utilizzare la RV per manipolare esperienze relative alle emozioni e al rilassamento; 3) applicare i risultati in un protocollo focalizzato sulla gestione delle emozioni. Eravamo interessati a valutare l'efficacia del protocollo supportato da diversi media. I risultati saranno discussi all'interno della Tesi: da un lato, la relazione tra caratteristiche dei media e senso di presenza e, dall'altro, la relazione tra presenza e dimensione affettiva nei media interattivi. / It is well known that affective dimension is an important part of user experience in interactive media and many studies showed their ability to elicit emotions. Nevertheless it is less clear how to manipulate the interactive media features to induce specific emotional responses. In particular this is true for an emerging medium, such as Virtual Reality (VR), which main feature is the ability to induce a feeling of “presence” in the computer‐generated world experienced by the user. We investigated the relationship among mediated communication processes, emotions and the “feeling of being there” (sense of presence) in mediated experiences, through three experimental studies aiming: 1) to manipulate and to verify the impact of the characteristics of VR: the narrative background and the features of the virtual environment. 2) to use VR to manipulate experience‐related relaxation and mood. 3) to apply the found results in a protocol focused on emotional management. We were interested to evaluate the efficacy of the protocol by using different media. Results will be discussed in depth within the Thesis: on one side, the relationship between media characteristics and presence and, on the other side, the relationship between presence and affective response in interactive media.