Imagine That! Imaginative Suggestibility Affects Presence in Virtual Reality

Personality characteristics can affect how much presence an individual experiences in virtual reality, and researchers have explored how it may be possible to prime users to increase their sense of presence. A personality characteristic that has yet to be explored in the VR literature is imaginative suggestibility, the ability of an individual to successfully experience an imaginary scenario as if it were real. In this paper, we explore how suggestibility and priming affect presence when consulting an ancient oracle in VR as part of an educational experience - a common VR application. We show for the first time how imaginative suggestibility is a major factor which affects presence and emotions experienced in VR, while priming cues have no effect on participants' (n=128) user experience, contrasting results from prior work. We consider the impacts of these findings for VR design and provide guidelines based on our results.</p

Hypnotic Suggestibility enhances with Online Harvard Group Scale

The scientific study of hypnosis, in particular its use within experimental paradigms, has steadily increased in recent years. Such studies often recruit highly suggestible individuals identified via extensive screening procedures. Recently, new online hypnotic suggestibility screening techniques have been developed, however no study has yet measured the most widely used suggestibility scale, the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (Harvard) online. In this study we recruited seventy-five participants to take part in both an offline and online Harvard screening. A within-group comparison of objective Harvard scores for each subscale (ideomotor, challenge, cognitive) was conducted between offline and online sessions, using a repeated measures factorial test. Results showed a small but significant increase in suggestibility (5.8%) during the online session compared to the offline session, which was driven by response to ideomotor suggestions. Further correlation analyses ruled out that this difference was due to the duration of the interval between first (offline) and second (online) screening, and time of day at which participants took part. Online screening for suggestibility using the Harvard is feasible and marginally enhanced. Screening groups rather than individuals online using the Harvard should be explored in future studies. Online screening using the Harvard has the potential to broaden participation in experimental hypnosis studies thereby increasing its efficacy as a research tool