Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) involve the use of a distributed architecture, and advanced interactive user interfaces to create a ’shared’ sense of space where users located in different physical locations can interact. In this paper, we describe two experimental designs which use subjective evaluation methods to asses personal presence and co-presence in a CVE. Personal presence is having a feeling of “being there” in the CVE yourself. Co-presence is having a feeling that one is in the same place as the other participants, and that one is collaborating with real people. The first experiment investigates the effects of avatar appearance and functionality (gestures and facial expressions) on presence and co-presence in a CVE. The second experiment investigates the effects of small group collaboration on co-presence in a CVE
