Media Presence and Inner Presence: The Sense of Presence in Virtual Reality Technologies

Abstract. Presence is widely accepted as the key concept to be considered in any research involving human interaction with Virtual Reality (VR). Since its original description, the concept of presence has developed over the past decade to be considered by many researchers as the essence of any experience in a virtual environment. The VR generating systems comprise two main parts: a technological component and a psychological experience. The different relevance given to them produced two different but coexisting visions of presence: the rationalist and the psychological/ecological points of view. The rationalist point of view considers a VR system as a collection of specific machines with the necessity of the inclusion \ud of the concept of presence. The researchers agreeing with this approach describe the sense of presence as a function of the experience of a given medium (Media Presence). The main result of this approach is the definition of presence as the perceptual illusion of non-mediation produced by means of the disappearance of the medium from the conscious attention of the subject. At the other extreme, there \ud is the psychological or ecological perspective (Inner Presence). Specifically, this perspective considers presence as a neuropsychological phenomenon, evolved from the interplay of our biological and cultural inheritance, whose goal is the control of the human activity. \ud Given its key role and the rate at which new approaches to understanding and examining presence are appearing, this chapter draws together current research on presence to provide an up to date overview of the most widely accepted approaches to its understanding and measurement

With a little help from my friends: Children, the Internet and Social Support

This study documents the types and extent of social support messages exchanged by children and adolescents who participated in a computer-based support group. Using qualitative content analysis, the electronic mail posted in a 3-month period on a support listserv for young siblings of children with chronic health needs were observed and described. The content of the postings sent to Sibkids was analyzed to identify themes in how the young people used the listserv for support. Examples of social support types identified on the site are described. The largest percentage of these messages offered social companionship and emotional or informational support. Tangible assistance was not offered. The implications of this study for social support researchers and human service professionals are discussed

Psychology Student Opinion of Virtual Reality as a Tool to Educate about Schizophrenia

Virtual Reality (VR) techniques are increasingly being used in e-health education, training and in trial clinical programs in the treatment of certain types of mental illness. Undergraduate psychology student opinion of the use of Virtual Reality (VR) to teach them about schizophrenia at the University of Queensland, was determined with reference to 3 general teaching objectives. Their ratings and comments concerning different aspects were used to evaluate the VR techniques and make suggestions concerning the delivery of undergraduate psychology teaching programs. The results also indicate the enormous potential significance in using VR in educating students about schizophrenia and psychosis

A virtual environment to re-create the auditory and visual hallucinations of psychosis

Psychosis is a mental disorder which affects 1-2% of the population at some point in their lives. This project aims to develop a virtual environment to simulate the experience of psychosis, focusing on re-creating the auditory and visual hallucinations. A virtual psychiatric ward environment has been constructed and the psychosis simulation software has been written to implement the hallucinations of two patients. A patient who viewed her re-created psychotic experiences was very impressed, and commented that the simulation re-created the same emotions that she had experienced on a day-to-day basis during her psychotic episodes. This is essential if the software is to be used as an educational tool about psychosis