Skip to main content
Frontiers in Robotics and AI logoLink to Frontiers in Robotics and AI
. 2018 Oct 15;5:114. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2018.00114

A Systematic Review of Social Presence: Definition, Antecedents, and Implications

Catherine S Oh 1,*, Jeremy N Bailenson 1, Gregory F Welch 2
PMCID: PMC7805699  PMID: 33500993

Abstract

Social presence, or the feeling of being there with a “real” person, is a crucial component of interactions that take place in virtual reality. This paper reviews the concept, antecedents, and implications of social presence, with a focus on the literature regarding the predictors of social presence. The article begins by exploring the concept of social presence, distinguishing it from two other dimensions of presence—telepresence and self-presence. After establishing the definition of social presence, the article offers a systematic review of 233 separate findings identified from 152 studies that investigate the factors (i.e., immersive qualities, contextual differences, and individual psychological traits) that predict social presence. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of heightened social presence and when it does and does not enhance one's experience in a virtual environment.

Keywords: social presence, presence, virtual reality, virtual environments, immersion, computer-mediated communication

Introduction

Since its conceptualization, virtual reality (VR) has been touted as a novel communication medium that would radically change the way people interact with each other (Biocca and Levy, 2013). William Gibson famously described cyberspace as a “consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation” (Gibson, 1984, p. 51), portraying the social nature of “stepping through a barrier” (Slater and Wilbur, 1997, p. 2) into the virtual environment. More recently, VR pioneer Jaron Lanier, expressed his hope that VR would lead to new and exciting forms of communication (Lanier, 2017).

Despite the conceptualization of VR as a social medium wherein individuals could co-exist and interact with each other (Biocca and Levy, 2013), much of the early research on VR technology focused on single-user head-mounted display (HMD) systems that typically were not available outside of the laboratory. In more recent years, however, VR technology has rapidly made its transition from lab to home in various forms. This increased accessibility of VR technology has fueled a renewed interest in the social applications of VR, which is exemplified by the launch of multiple platforms including AltSpace VR, Facebook Spaces, High Fidelity, Normal VR, Oculus Medium, Rec Room, Sansar, and VR Chat.

One of the primary attractions of VR is purported to be the level of social presence it affords in comparison to other forms of technology-mediated communication. Social presence refers to the subjective experience of being present with a “real” person and having access to his or her thoughts and emotions (Biocca, 1997); as such, one of the primary goals of networked communication systems is to offer higher levels of social presence (Biocca and Harms, 2002). Earlier forms of text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) offered a limited amount of verbal and nonverbal information, which subsequently reduced the level of social presence people could feel within a set amount of time. Recent advancements in technology, however, have made media far more immersive than the past; in contrast to earlier forms of CMC, wherein individuals could only use text-based cues to express themselves, VR systems have the capacity to offer a wide array of social cues through visual, audio, haptic, and—to a lesser extent—olfactory information. It is therefore necessary to understand how different technological features influence perceptions of social presence to inform the design of VR platforms.

Researchers have also found that social presence can be influenced by contextual and individual factors that impact perceptions of the psychological distance between interactants (e.g., Siriaraya and Ang, 2012; Kang and Gratch, 2014; Verhagen et al., 2014). Studies conducted by these researchers show that the communication context as well as the individual traits of the interactants can influence perceptions of social presence. One of the most significant contributions of this line of research is that it sheds light on when increasing immersion is (and is not) necessary in order to induce stronger feelings of social presence. In a similar vein, these studies can inform both academic and applied researchers on how to maximize the amount of social presence one can feel within a given virtual environment.

To understand the concept, antecedents, and implications of social presence, we will first define two key concepts of the current paper, namely immersion and presence. Then we will offer a brief description of two separate dimensions of presence—telepresence and self-presence—to distinguish them from social presence. The remainder of the paper will focus on synthesizing the research on the antecedents of social presence to explore what does (and does not) impact perceptions of social presence.

Immersion and the dimensions of presence

While some researchers use the terms “immersion” and “presence” interchangeably, distinguishing the two concepts allows for a better understanding of the difference between the technological qualities and psychological experiences afforded by mediated communication. Immersion can be defined as a medium's technological capacity to generate realistic experiences that can remove people from their physical reality (Slater and Wilbur, 1997). When defined in this way, immersion can be objectively measured by the technological affordances of a medium. Media are more immersive when they can deliver “an inclusive, extensive, surrounding and vivid illusion of reality to the senses of a human participant” (Slater and Wilbur, 1997, p. 604). Features such as audio and visual quality, frame rate, stereoscopy, and field of view can impact the extent to which a system is immersive (Welch et al., 1996; Johnson and Stewart, 1999; Skalski and Whitbred, 2010; Cummings and Bailenson, 2016).

In contrast to immersion, presence is the subjective experience of actually being in the mediated virtual environment (Slater and Wilbur, 1997; Witmer and Singer, 1998; Walther and Parks, 2002). As presence is needed for people to fully experience a virtual environment, it has been the focus of both applied and academic work on virtual reality (Cummings et al., 2012). Presence can be further divided into three distinct subcategories: telepresence (spatial presence), self-presence, and social presence (Lee, 2004).

Telepresence can be defined as “the extent to which one feels present in the mediated environment, rather than in the immediate physical environment” (Steuer, 1992, p. 75). This dimension of presence relates strongly to how vividly the user experiences the environmental and spatial properties of the mediated environment. When the perception of telepresence is strong, people should no longer be aware that their experiences are being mediated through technology (Lombard and Ditton, 1997).

In contrast to telepresence, self-presence is the extent to which the “virtual self is experienced as the actual self” (Aymerich-Franch et al., 2012, p. 1). This dimension of presence differs from telepresence, as it is not related to how vividly one experiences his or her surroundings, but rather, how connected one feels to his or her virtual body, emotions, or identity (Ratan and Hasler, 2009).

Finally, social presence or co-presence, refers to the “sense of being with another” (Biocca et al., 2003, p. 456) and is dependent on the ease with which one perceives to have “the access to the intelligence, intentions, and sensory impressions of another” (Biocca, 1997, p. 22). The concept was first introduced as a theoretical framework to understand the interactions that took place on different forms of media (Short et al., 1976). Social presence differs from both telepresence and self-presence, as it requires a co-present entity that appears to be sentient. Social presence is an integral part of virtual environments that mediate people; without social presence, the mediated other is merely experienced as an artificial entity and not a social being (Lee et al., 2006a).

The evolution of social presence

Social presence was first conceptualized by Short et al. (1976) and was defined as the salience of the interactants and their interpersonal relationship during a mediated conversation. According to Short et al. (1976), intimacy and immediacy are the two core components of social presence. These two concepts are closely related to each other; intimacy refers to the feeling of connectedness that communicators feel during an interaction, while immediacy is the psychological distance between the communicators. Both intimacy and immediacy are determined by verbal and nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, vocal cues, gestures, and physical appearance (Gunawardena and Zittle, 1997). Short and colleagues argued that some media were more capable at delivering these cues, while others were not, emphasizing that social presence was a “quality of the medium itself” (Short et al., 1976, p. 65).

The view that social presence is technologically determined was also echoed by early CMC researchers who endorsed the cues-filtered-out perspective (see Walther and Parks, 2002 for review). For example, media richness theory (Daft and Lengel, 1986) claimed that different media varied in their ability to reproduce “rich” social information (e.g., immediate feedback, language variety, personalization, number of cues), thereby making some media more appropriate than others for certain tasks. Put otherwise, certain media are inherently superior to others in achieving a specific communication goal. While some researchers have since rejected this technology-driven conceptualization of social presence (e.g., Walther, 1992), others continue to examine whether people feel different levels of social presence when interacting via a specific medium compared to another. Studies that focus on how the modality or specific technological affordances of a medium (e.g., immersive features) impact social presence are based on the assumption that certain affordances of a medium can increase or decrease social presence when all other circumstances are equal (e.g., Axelsson et al., 2001; Moreno and Mayer, 2004; Zhan and Mei, 2013).

In contrast to these medium-centric views of social presence, Walther (1992) argued that individuals are capable of adapting to different communication media, and can thus achieve their communication goals accordingly. From this perspective, the experience of social presence is highly contingent on the interactants, rather than the medium itself. This view is known as social information processing theory (SIPT). According to this theory, communication environments that offer fewer verbal and/or nonverbal cues (e.g., text-based CMC) can produce equal levels of intimacy as face-to-face (FtF) communication, although it may take more time. Walther (1996) later expanded this theory to posit that people who communicate via text-based CMC platforms could, in some cases, achieve even higher levels of social presence than FtF interactants by carefully selecting which facets of themselves they wish to reveal (i.e., hyperpersonal model of communication). Subsequent studies have since shown that individuals adopt different strategies to convey socioemotional cues on platforms with relatively limited verbal and nonverbal cues (e.g., Ramirez et al., 2002; Antheunis et al., 2010).

While both SIPT and the hyperpersonal model posit that technology does not solely determine the level of social presence a medium can afford, it is important to note that neither perspective denies the inherent differences between media. When individuals are only given limited communication options (e.g., short timespan, specific task type, etc.), it is probable that the technological features of the environment will influence the level of social presence a person feels. At the same time, however, this perspective offers a more nuanced view of social presence; while the immersive qualities (i.e., computer system's technological capacity to deliver a vivid experience) can impact social presence, individual communication strategies as well as contextual differences have a significant effect on social presence.

Why does social presence matter?

While both telepresence and self-presence have received academic focus, social presence has been considered to be particularly important within virtual environments with social actors (regardless of whether they are controlled by actual people or computer algorithms). This is due to the impact of social presence on social influence. Studies have shown that social presence is associated with a variety of positive communication outcomes, such as persuasion and attraction (e.g., Fogg and Tseng, 1999; Lee et al., 2006a). For example, Hassanein and Head (2007) found that social presence was positively associated with trust, enjoyment, and perceived usefulness of an online shopping website, which led to greater purchase intentions. Another study wherein social presence was operationalized to focus on the extent to which participants felt like they were together with their partner similarly found that social presence predicted attraction toward a physically embodied agent (i.e., robot; Lee et al., 2006a).

Antecedents of social presence

Because social presence often predicts positive communication outcomes, both academic researchers and practitioners have displayed a great interest in studying the factors that increase social presence. By reviewing 233 separate findings identified from 152 studies, we found that researchers have most often explored the influence of immersive qualities, contextual differences, and individual psychological traits on social presence (see Table 1). However, to the best of our knowledge, little effort has been made to synthesize the findings of these studies (for an exception, see Cummings and Wertz, 2018). Consequently, it is difficult to have a holistic understanding of which features are the most influential in predicting social presence. This paper attempts to overcome this shortcoming by offering a systematic review of the extant literature on the immersive, contextual, and psychological features that impact perceived social presence. The results, details, and general information of the studies that were reviewed are available in Tables 13.

Table 1.

Summary of study results.

Predictor References Details Outcome Notes
IMMERSION
Modality Appel et al., 2012 Text vs. Avatar +
Alge et al., 2003 CMC vs. FtF +
Alghamdi et al., 2016 (Study 2) Desktop vs. HMD Null
Axelsson et al., 2001 Desktop vs. CAVE Null
Bailenson et al., 2006 Audio vs. Audio+Video vs. Audio+Emotibox Others > Audio+Emotibox
Bente et al., 2008 Text vs. Audio vs. Audio+Video vs. Audio+Avatar Others > Text
Cortese and Seo, 2012 CMC vs. FTF +
de Greef, 2014 Audio vs. Audio+Video +* *Moderated by gender
de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001 Audio vs. Audio+Video +
Francescato et al., 2006 CMC vs. FtF Null
Gimpel et al., 2016 Text vs. Audio vs. Audio+Video +
Hauber et al., 2005 2D vs. 3D vs. FtF Others < FtF
Hauber et al., 2006 2D vs. 3D-local vs. 3D-remote vs. FtF Others < FtF
Hauber et al., 2012 Video vs. Video-CVE vs. Stereo large-screen video-CVE vs. FTF Others < FtF* *Moderated by gender
Heldal et al., 2005 IPT*-IPT vs. IPT-HMD vs. IPT-Desktop vs. Desktop-Desktop IPT-IPT/HMD >Desktop-Desktop/IPT *IPT: Immersive Projection Technology
Hills, 2005 (Study 1) 2D vs. 3D vs. FtF +
Hills, 2005 (Study 2) 2D vs. 3D +
Homer et al., 2008 Audio vs. Audio+Video Null
Järvelä et al., 2016 Nonverbal vs. Verbal +* *Moderated by physical proximity
Jin, 2009 Text vs. Audio –* *Moderated by product involvement
Johnsen and Lok, 2008 Large screen display vs. HMD Null
Jung et al., 2017 Picture vs. Video +
Kim et al., 2014 Text vs. Text+Video +
Kim et al., 2013b Text vs. Audio +
Kothgassner et al., 2014 HMD vs. FtF +
Lee, 2013 Television vs. Twitter –* *Moderated by Need-for-Cognition
Lee and Jang, 2013 (Study 1) Newspaper vs. Twitter +* *Moderated by affiliative tendency
Lee and Jang, 2013 (Study 2) Newspaper vs. Twitter +* *Moderated by affiliative tendency
Lee and Shin, 2014 Newspaper vs. Twitter +* *Moderated by transportability
Moreno and Mayer, 2004 Desktop vs. HMD Null
Nam et al., 2008 Visual+Haptic vs. Visual+Haptic+Audio +
Nowak et al., 2009 Text vs. Video +
Qiu and Benbasat, 2005 Text vs. Audio vs. Text+Audio Null
Schroeder et al., 2001 IPT-Desktop vs. IPT-IPT IPT-Desktop < IPT-IPT
Sallnäs, 2005 (Study 1) Text vs. Audio vs. Audio+Video Others > Text
Sallnäs, 2005 (Study 2) Audio vs. Audio+Video Null
Sallnäs, 2005 (Study 2) Web vs. CVE Null
Slater et al., 1999 Desktop vs. HMD Null
Slater et al., 2000 Desktop vs. HMD Null
Steed et al., 1999 Desktop vs. HMD Null
Wideström et al., 2000 Desktop vs. CAVE Null
Yoo and Alavi, 2001 Audio vs. Audio+Video +
Zhan and Mei, 2013 CMC vs. FtF +
Visual representation Bailenson et al., 2001 Photographic realism Null
Bailenson et al., 2001 Behavioral realism (Mutual gaze) +
Bailenson et al., 2003 (Study 1) Behavioral realism (Mutual gaze) +
Bailenson et al., 2003 (Study 2) Behavioral realism (Mutual gaze) +
Bailenson et al., 2005 Match between visual and behavioral realism +
Bente et al., 2007 (Study 1) Behavioral realism (Mutual gaze) +
Bente et al., 2007 (Study 2) Behavioral realism (Mutual gaze) Inverted U* *Moderated by gender
Bente et al., 2008 Photographic realism (Low vs. High fidelity avatar) Null
Casanueva and Blake, 2001 (Study 2) Behavioral realism (Static vs. Dynamic) +
Choi et al., 2001 Absent vs. Present +
Clayes and Anderson, 2007 Photographic realism (Avatar icon vs. Video image) Null
Croes et al., 2016 Invisible vs. Visible +
Dalzel-Job, 2014 (Study 2) Behavioral realism (Mutual gaze) Null
Fortin and Dholakia, 2005 Vividness +
Garau et al., 2003 Match between visual and behavioral realism +
Garau et al., 2005 Behavioral realism (static vs. moving vs. responsive vs. talking) Static < responsive No other significant differences
Gong, 2008 Anthropomorphism (low vs. medium vs. high vs. real human) +
Guadagno et al., 2007 (Study 1) Behavioral realism +
Guadagno et al., 2007 (Study 2) Behavioral realism +
Kang and Gratch, 2014 Behavioral realism (High, Low, None) Null
Kang and Watt, 2013 Anthropomorphism (Low vs. High) +
Kang and Watt, 2013 Behavioral realism (Static vs. Dynamic) Null
Kang et al., 2008 Behavioral realism (Static vs. Dynamic) +
Kang et al., 2008 Visual realism (Graphic vs. Video) +
Kim and Sundar, 2012 Absent vs. Present (virtual character) −* *Moderated by interactivity
Kim et al., 2004 Pointer (Absent vs. Present)
Kim et al., 2013b Absent vs. Present +
Lee et al., 2005 Behavioral realism (Low vs. High developmental capacity) +
Meyer and Lohner, 2012 Absent vs. Present +
Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Anthropomorphism (No image vs. Low vs. High) No image/High < Low
Pan et al., 2008 Blushing behavior (non vs. cheeks vs. whole face) Others < Whole Face
Park and Sundar, 2015 Absent vs. Picture vs. Emoticon Absent/Picture < Emoticon
Qiu and Benbasat, 2005 3D Avatar (Absent vs. Present) Null
Shahid et al., 2012 Behavioral realism (Mutual gaze) +
Vishwanath, 2016 (Study 2) Absent vs. Present +
von der Pütten et al., 2010 Behavioral realism +
Wu et al., 2014 Behavioral realism (Static vs. Dynamic) +
Xu, 2014 Absent vs. Present (profile picture) +
Interactivity Fortin and Dholakia, 2005 Low vs. Medium vs. High interactivity +* *Moderated by Need-for-Cognition
Garau et al., 2005 Responsiveness +
Han et al., 2016 Machine & person interactivity +
Lee et al., 2007 Not interactive (offline quiz) vs. Interactive (online quiz) +
Lee and Shin, 2012 Low vs. High interactivity +* *Moderated by affiliative tendency
Lim and Lee-Won, 2017 Monologic vs. Dialogic +
Nowak et al., 2009 Synchronocicity (Low vs. High) +
Park and Sundar, 2015 Synchronocicity (Low vs. Medium vs. High) Low/Medium < High
Phillips and Lee, 2005 (Study 3) None vs. Simple vs. Complex None/Simple < Complex
Qin et al., 2013 Synchronocicity (Haptic packet data loss: 0.3 vs. 0.2 vs. 0.1 vs. none) +
Rauh and Renfro, 2004 Synchronocicity (No feedback delay vs. Feedback delay) Null
Rauwers et al., 2016 Internal communication features: Absent vs. Present + Null for external communication features
Shimoda, 2007 Generic vs. Tailored vs. Feedback-driven message Null
Skalski and Tamborini, 2007 Not interactive vs. Interactive +
Zelenkauskaite and Bucy, 2009 Passive vs. Interactive +
Haptic feedback Basdogan et al., 2000 Absent vs. present +
Chellali et al., 2011 Absent vs. present +
Giannopoulos et al., 2008 Absent vs. present +
Jordan et al., 2002 Absent vs. Present +
Kim et al., 2004 Absent vs. present +
Lee et al., 2017 Sound vs. Sound + Vibrotactile Feedback + No differences found between No Sound vs. Sound/Sound+Vibrotactile Feedback
Lee et al., 2018 Absent vs. Present +
Nam et al., 2008 Absent vs. Present +
Sallnäs, 2010 Absent vs. Present +
Sallnäs et al., 2000 Absent vs. present Null
Depth cues Ahn et al., 2014 Stereoscopy (Mono vs. Stereo) +
Kim et al., 2012 (Study 1) Mono vs. Motion parallax vs. Stereo+Motion parallax Mono < Motion parallax/Stereo+Motion parallax
Kim et al., 2012 (Study 2) Mono vs. Motion parallax vs. Stereo+Motion parallax Mono < Motion parallax/Stereo+Motion parallax
Mühlbach et al., 1995 (Study 1) Stereoscopy (Mono vs. Stereo) +
Takatalo et al., 2011 Mono vs. Medium stereo separation vs. High stereo separation Inverted U
Audio quality Christie, 1974 Singlespeaker (speakerphone/high-fidelity speaker phone) vs. Multi-speaker +
Dicke et al., 2010 Monophonic vs. Stereophonic vs. Binaural Binaural > Mono/Stereo
Skalski and Whitbred, 2010 Two-Channel Sound vs. Surround Sound +
Display Ahn et al., 2014 One 55-inch screen vs. Three 55-inch screens +
Bracken, 2005 Image quality (NTSC vs. HDTV) +
James et al., 2011 30-inch LCD screen vs. rear-projection system on 13-foot dome Null
Skalski and Whitbred, 2010 Image quality (Standard vs. High Definition) Null
Other Chuah et al., 2013 (Study 1) Low vs. High physicality +* *Moderated by plausibility
Hayes, 2015 Static display vs. Motion control by tracking (Kinect) Null Positive for only for a few items
Heidicker et al., 2017 No tracking vs. Tracking vs. Tracking+ Inverse Kinematics Null Positive for only for two sub-factors
Hills et al., 2005 One view point vs. Multiple view points
Lee et al., 2016 Incidental movement of real-virtual object (Absent vs. Present) +
Lee et al., 2006a (Study 1) Virtual social robot vs. Physical social robot +
Lee et al., 2006a (Study 2) Virtual social robot vs. Physical social robot Tactile interaction restricted
Li et al., 2016 Human vs. robot virtual lecturer
Oh et al., 2016 “Jaw flap” vs. Facial tracking vs. Exaggerated facial tracking “Jaw flap”/Facial tracking < Exaggerated facial tracking
Tanaka et al., 2015 (Study 1) Low vs. High Physicality +
Wu et al., 2015 Virtual bowling (exergame) vs. Physical bowling +
Zibrek et al., 2017(Study 2) Self-move vs. Other-move Null
CONTEXT
Personality/Traits of virtual human Al-Natour et al., 2011 Match between virtual shopping assistant and participant strategy +
Aymerich-Franch et al., 2012 Match between participant's and avatar's voice +
Bailenson and Yee, 2005 Mimicry +
Gong et al., 2007 (Study 1) Group identity (Mismatch vs. Match) +* *Moderated by identification
Gong et al., 2007 (Study 2) Group identity (Mismatch vs. Match) +* *Moderated by identification
Guadagno et al., 2011 Perceived empathy +
Han et al., 2016 Self-disclosure +
Jin, 2012 (Study 2) Match between physical and virtual other +
Kang and Gratch, 2014 Self-disclosure (None vs. Low vs. High) Low/None < High
Kim and Timmerman, 2018 Supportive feedback (Not supportive vs. supportive) +
Kothgassner et al., 2014 Social inclusion (exclusion vs. inclusion) Null
Kothgassner et al., 2017 Social inclusion (exclusion vs. inclusion) Null
Lee and Nass, 2005 (Study 1) Match between computer agent and participant personality +
Lee and Nass, 2005 (Study 2) Match between content & personality manifested by voice +
Lee and Oh, 2012 (Study 1) Impersonal vs. personal disclosure +
Lee et al., 2006b Match between robot and participant personality +
McGregor, 2018 Impersonal vs. personal disclosure +* * Moderated by group identity and target gender
Qiu and Benbasat, 2010 Same ethnicity vs. Different ethnicity +* *Moderated by gender
Qiu and Benbasat, 2010 Same gender vs. Different gender Null
Verhagen et al., 2014 Expert +* *Moderated by task type
Verhagen et al., 2014 Friendly +* *Moderated by task type
Verhagen et al., 2014 Smiling Null
Xu and Lombard, 2017 Group identification +
Agency Appel et al., 2012 Agent vs. Avatar +
Bailenson et al., 2003 (Study 2) Agent vs. Avatar +
Dalzel-Job, 2014 (Study 2) Agent vs. Avatar Null
Felnhofer et al., 2018 Agent vs. Avatar Null
Gajadhar et al., 2008 Agent vs. Avatar +
Guadagno et al., 2007 (Study 2) Agent vs. Avatar +* *Moderated by virtual human gender
Hoyt et al., 2003 Agent vs. Avatar +
Kothgassner et al., 2014 Agent vs. Avatar Null
Kothgassner et al., 2017 Agent vs. Avatar Null
Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Agent vs. Avatar Null
Peña et al., 2017 Agent vs. Avatar +
von der Pütten et al., 2010 Agent vs. Avatar Null
Physical proximity Croes et al., 2016 Same room vs. Different rooms +
Gajadhar et al., 2008 Same room vs. Different rooms +
Hatta and Ken-ichi, 2008 Remote vs. close +* *Moderated by visibility
Järvelä et al., 2016 Same room vs. Different rooms +
Jung et al., 2017 Distant vs. Close (geolocation proximity) +
Task type de Greef, 2014 Complex vs. Simple +* *Moderated by relationship
Herrewijn and Poels, 2015 Be observer vs. Be Player vs. Collaborate Observe/Play < Collaborate
Kim et al., 2013a Human as care-giver vs. Robot as care-giver +
Wu et al., 2015 Competitive vs. Collaborative Null
Social cues Choi and Kwak, 2017 (Study 2) Number of remote senders (single vs. multiple) +
Daher et al., 2016 Exposure to other person interacting with VH (No vs. Yes) +
Kim, 2016 Number of different voices (single vs. multiple) +
Kim and Sundar, 2014 Online buddy (Absent vs. Present) -
Lee and Nass, 2004 (Study 1) Single voice vs. Multiple voices +
Lee and Nass, 2004 (Study 2) Single voice vs. Multiple voices +
Lee et al., 2005 Number of participants (individual vs. group) Null
Robb et al., 2016 Presence of human teammate (No vs. Yes) Null Null main effect, but significant interaction with role of virtual human
Robb et al., 2016 Role of virtual human (anesthesiologist vs. surgeon) +* *Only when there was no human teammate
Identity cues Choi and Kwak, 2017 (Study 1) Telepresence robot: Low identity cues vs. High identity cues +/− Higher for robot, lower for remote sender
Choi and Kwak, 2017 (Study 2) Telepresence robot: Low identity cues vs. High identity cues +/− Higher for robot, lower for remote sender
Feng et al., 2016 No personal cues vs. Name+Picture +
Li et al., 2015 Non-name ID vs. Picture+name ID +
Schumann et al., 2017 Non-name ID vs. Picture+name ID +
Other Alghamdi et al., 2016 (Study 1) Multiple vs. Integrated communication channels +
Alghamdi et al., 2016 (Study 2) Multiple vs. Integrated communication channels +
Bouchard et al., 2013 Relationship (Virtual animal vs. Unknown VH vs. Known VH) +
Feng et al., 2016 Gender of VH Null
Horvath and Lombard, 2010 No social pleasantries & picture vs. Social pleasantries & picture +
Jin, 2011 Match between regulatory strategy and task +
Kang and Watt, 2013 Non-anonymous vs. Anonymous partner -
Kim et al., 2016 Implausible vs. Plausible VH behavior +
Kim et al., 2017 Implausible vs. Plausible VH behavior +
Yoo and Alavi, 2001 Group cohesion (groups without vs. with a history) +
INDIVIDUAL
Demographic variables Bailenson et al., 2006 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Bracken, 2005 Gender (Male vs. Female) Null
Cho et al., 2015 Gender (Male vs. Female) Null
de Greef, 2014 Gender (Male vs. Female) Null
de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Felnhofer et al., 2014 Gender (Male vs. Female) Null
Giannopoulos et al., 2008 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Guadagno et al., 2007 (Study 1) Gender (Male vs. Female) Null
Hauber et al., 2005 Gender (Male vs. Female) Null
Johnson, 2011 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Lim and Richardson, 2016 Gender (Male vs. Female) Null
Lowden and Hostetter, 2012 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Nowak, 2003 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Qin et al., 2013 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Qiu and Benbasat, 2010 Gender (Male vs. Female) Null
Richardson and Swan, 2003 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Thayalan et al., 2012 Gender (Male vs. Female) +
Cho et al., 2015 Age Null
Felnhofer et al., 2014 Age Null
Hauber et al., 2005 Age Null
Kim et al., 2004 Age
Lim and Richardson, 2016 Age Null
Richardson and Swan, 2003 Age Null
Siriaraya and Ang, 2012 Age
Psychological traits Cortese and Seo, 2012 Communication Apprehension
Giannopoulos et al., 2008 Shyness
Jin, 2010 Interdependent self-construal +
Kim et al., 2013a Immersive Tendency +
Kim et al., 2013a Need to Belong +
Kim et al., 2016 Extraversion +
Lee et al., 2006a Loneliness +
Lee and Shin, 2014 Transportability +* *Moderated by modality
Other Cho et al., 2015 Epistemological Belief (Simple vs. Complex) +
Gimpel et al., 2016 Channel competence (experience comfort with medium) +
Tanaka et al., 2015 (Study 2) Previous interaction experience (No vs. Yes) +* *Moderated by physicality

Table 3.

Summary of publication impact factora, sample size, and number of citationsb of reviewed studies.

References Publication outlet N Most recent impact factor No. of Citations
Ahn et al., 2014 Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 144 2.689 4
Al-Natour et al., 2011 Journal of the Association for Information Systems 181 2.839 61
Alge et al., 2003 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 198 2.259 322
Alghamdi et al., 2016 (Study 1 & 2) Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems 67 & 50 N/A 2
Appel et al., 2012 Advances in Human-Computer Interaction 90 N/A 25
Axelsson et al., 2001 Cyberpsychology and Behavior 44 2.689 39
Aymerich-Franch et al., 2012 International Workshop on Presence 51 N/A 12
Bailenson and Yee, 2005 Psychological Science 69 6.128 493
Bailenson et al., 2001 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 50 0.426 357
Bailenson et al., 2003 (Study 1 & 2) Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 80 & 80 2.498 491
Bailenson et al., 2005 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 146 0.426 237
Bailenson et al., 2006 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 30 0.426 252
Basdogan et al., 2000 ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 10 0.972 432
Bente et al., 2007 (Study 1 & 2) International Workshop on Presence 76 & 82 N/A 48
Bente et al., 2008 Human Communication Research 150 2.364 354
Bouchard et al., 2013 Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 42 2.689 30
Bracken, 2005 Media Psychology 95 2.574 168
Casanueva and Blake, 2001 (Study 1 & 2) Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists 18 & 18 N/A 49
Chellali et al., 2011 Interacting with Computers 60 0.809 24
Cho et al., 2015 Internet and Higher Education 128 5.847 26
Choi and Kwak, 2017 (Study 1 & 2) Cognitive Systems Research 60 & 72 N/A 1
Choi et al., 2001 Journal of Interactive Advertising 210 N/A 139
Christie, 1974 European Journal of Social Psychology 36 N/A N/A
Chuah et al., 2013 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 23 0.426 18
Clayes and Anderson, 2007 International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 72 2.3 23
Cortese and Seo, 2012 Communication Research Reports 152 N/A 13
Croes et al., 2016 Computers in Human Behavior 210 3.536 6
Daher et al., 2016 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 24 N/A
Dalzel-Job, 2014 (Study 2) The University of Edinburgh 48 N/A
de Greef, 2014 International Workshop on Presence 42 N/A
de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001 Cyberpsychology and Behavior 34 2.689 121
DeSchryver et al., 2009 Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 31 N/A 140
Dicke et al., 2010 British Computer Society Interaction Specialist Group Conference 82 N/A 2
Felnhofer et al., 2014 Computers in Human Behavior 124 3.536 33
Felnhofer et al., 2018 Computers in Human Behavior 95 3.536
Feng et al., 2016 Communication Research 202 3.391 18
Fortin and Dholakia, 2005 Journal of Business Research 360 2.509 516
Francescato et al., 2006 Computers in Human Behavior 50 3.536 190
Gajadhar et al., 2008 International Conference of Fun and Games 2006- 0.402 125
Garau et al., 2003 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 48 N/A 311
Garau et al., 2005 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 41 0.426 145
Giannopoulos et al., 2008 International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer Applications 40 0.402 11
Gimpel et al., 2016 European Conference on Information Systems 528 N/A 5
Gong, 2008 Computers in Human Behavior 168 3.536 116
Gong et al., 2007 (Study 1 & 2) Annual Conference of the International Communication Association 53 & 64 N/A 3
Guadagno et al., 2007 (Study 1 & 2) Media Psychology 65 & 174 2.574 216
Guadagno et al., 2011 Computers in Human Behavior 38 3.536 45
Han et al., 2016 International Journal of Information Management 809 4.516 14
Hatta and Ken-ichi, 2008 Computers in Human Behavior 43 3.536 11
Hauber et al., 2005 International Workshop on Presence 42 N/A 76
Hauber et al., 2006 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 30 N/A 57
Hauber et al., 2012 The Open Software Engineering Journal 36 N/A 7
Hayes, 2015 University of Central Florida 20 N/A 1
Heidicker et al., 2017 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces 18 N/A 2
Heldal et al., 2005 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 220 N/A 31
Herrewijn and Poels, 2015 Computers in Human Behavior 121 3.536 12
Hills, 2005 (Study 1 & Study 2) University of Otago 42 & 35 N/A 10
Hills et al., 2005 International Conference on Augmented Tele-Existence 35 N/A 9
Homer et al., 2008 Computers in Human Behavior 26 & 25 3.536 148
Horvath and Lombard, 2010 PsychNology Journal 189 N/A 27
Hoyt et al., 2003 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 48 0.426 125
James et al., 2011 The Ergonomics Open Journal 10 N/A 1
Järvelä et al., 2016 Frontiers in Psychology 61 2.089 3
Jin, 2009 Cyberpsychology and Behavior 48 2.689 68
Jin, 2010 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 179 0.426 23
Jin, 2011 Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 101 1.773 75
Jin, 2012 (Study 2) Computers in Human Behavior 148 3.536 27
Johnsen and Lok, 2008 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 27 N/A 22
Johnson, 2011 Journal of Organizational and End User Computing 555 0.744 45
Jordan et al., 2002 International Workshop on Presence 20 N/A 32
Jung et al., 2017 Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 590 2.689 1
Kang and Gratch, 2014 Computers in Human Behavior 171 3.536 11
Kang and Watt, 2013 Computers in Human Behavior 196 3.536 15
Kang et al., 2008 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 126 N/A 31
Kim, 2016 Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 100 4 6
Kim et al., 2014 Computers in Human Behavior 80 3.536 13
Kim et al., 2013a Computers in Human Behavior 60 3.536 45
Kim et al., 2013b Information and Management 80 3.89 68
Kim and Sundar, 2012 Computers in Human Behavior 93 3.536 60
Kim and Sundar, 2014 Computers in Human Behavior 100 3.536 24
Kim and Timmerman, 2018 Journal of Media Psychology 47 1.118 4
Kim et al., 2004 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 20 0.426 146
Kim et al., 2012 (Study 1 & 2) Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 14 & 11 NA 79
Kim et al., 2016 International Conference on Artificial Reality and Tele-Existence 31 N/A 2
Kim et al., 2017 Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds 22 0.697 2
Kothgassner et al., 2014 International Workshop on Presence 48 N/A
Kothgassner et al., 2017 Computers in Human Behavior 45 3.536 4
Lee, 2013 Journal of Communication 183 3.729 34
Lee and Jang, 2013 (Study 1 & 2) Communication Research 143 & 100 3.391 57
Lee and Nass, 2004 Human Communication Research 40 2.364 107
Lee and Nass, 2005 (Study 1 & 2) Media Psychology 72 & 80 2.574 122
Lee and Oh, 2012(Study 1) Journal of Communication 164 3.729 72
Lee and Shin, 2012 Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 264 2.689 84
Lee and Shin, 2014 Communication Research 217 3.391 54
Lee et al., 2005 Human Communication Research 40 2.364 78
Lee et al., 2006a Journal of Communication 48 3.729 238
Lee et al., 2006b (Study 1 & 2) International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 32 & 32 2.3 176
Lee et al., 2007 International Workshop on Presence 41 N/A 4
Lee et al., 2016 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 20 N/A 11
Lee et al., 2017 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 41 N/A 6
Lee et al., 2018 IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 26 3.078
Li et al., 2015 Communication Quarterly 198 N/A 2
Li et al., 2016 Computers in Human Behavior 40 3.536 27
Lim and Lee-Won, 2017 Telematics and Informatics 128 3.789 5
Lowden and Hostetter, 2012 Computers in Human Behavior 157 3.536 16
McGregor, 2018 New Media & Society 1181 3.121 7
Meyer and Lohner, 2012 Annual Conference of the International Communication Association 120 N/A
Moreno and Mayer, 2004 Journal of Educational Psychology 48 4.433 317
Mühlbach et al., 1995 (Study 1) Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 32 2.371 123
Nam et al., 2008 Computers in Human Behavior 36 3.536 27
Nowak, 2003 Media Psychology 42 2.574 57
Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 134 0.426 576
Nowak et al., 2009 Computers in Human Behavior 142 3.536 36
Oh et al., 2016 PLOS One 158 2.766 6
Pan et al., 2008 International Workshop on Presence 33 N/A 8
Park and Sundar, 2015 Computers in Human Behavior 108 3.536 17
Peña et al., 2017 Journal of Media Psychology 216 1.118 2
Phillips and Lee, 2005 (Study 3) Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising 71 N/A
Qin et al., 2013 (Study 2) Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 20 0.426 6
Qiu and Benbasat, 2005 International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 72 1.259 159
Qiu and Benbasat, 2010 International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 188 2.3 83
Rauh and Renfro, 2004 Annual Conference of the International Communication Association 34 N/A 7
Rauwers et al., 2016 Computers in Human Behavior 195 3.536 3
Richardson and Swan, 2003 Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 97 N/A 1855
Robb et al., 2016 Frontiers in ICT 92 NA 1
Sallnäs, 2010 Haptics: Generating and Perceiving Tangible Sensations 18 0.402 17
Sallnäs, 2005 (Study 1) Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 60 0.426 119
Sallnäs et al., 2000 ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 14 0.972 382
Schroeder et al., 2001 Computers and Graphics 132 1.2 150
Schumann et al., 2017 (Study 2) Computers in Human Behavior 37 3.536 1
Shahid et al., 2012 Interacting with Computers 88 0.809 25
Shimoda, 2007 Annual Conference of the International Communication Association 51 N/A
Siriaraya and Ang, 2012 Interacting with Computers 60 0.809 29
Skalski and Tamborini, 2007 Media Psychology 235 2.574 88
Skalski and Whitbred, 2010 PsychNology Journal 74 N/A 66
Slater et al., 1999 IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 10 1.64 192
Slater et al., 2000 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 30 0.426 359
Steed et al., 1999 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 60 N/A 88
Takatalo et al., 2011 Media Psychology 91 2.574 56
Tanaka et al., 2015 Frontiers in ICT 36 & 16 NA 11
Thayalan et al., 2012 Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 51 N/A 7
Verhagen et al., 2014 Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 296 4 39
Vishwanath, 2016 (Study 2) Computers in Human Behavior 104 3.536 8
von der Pütten et al., 2010 Computers in Human Behavior 83 3.536 165
Wideström et al., 2000 International Conference on Collaborative Virtual Environments 88 N/A 32
Wu et al., 2014 IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 22 3.078 17
Wu et al., 2015 Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 113 2.689 14
Xu, 2014 Computers in Human Behavior 152 3.536 72
Yoo and Alavi, 2001 Management Information Systems Quarterly 135 5.43 724
Zelenkauskaite and Bucy, 2009 International Workshop on Presence 67 N/A 2
Zhan and Mei, 2013 Computers and Education 257 4.538 86
Zibrek et al., 2017 (Study 1 & 2) ACM Symposium on Applied Perception 38 & 18 N/A 2
a

Impact factor was retrieved from Web of Science Journal Citation Reports on August 19, 2018.

b

Number of citations was retrieved from Google Scholar on August 19, 2018.

Materials and method

To collect studies that focused on the antecedents of social presence, we directly reviewed the archives of academic journals with a focus on virtual environments including Computers in Human Behavior; Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking; Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication; Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments; Frontiers in Robotics and AI, and conference proceedings from the International Society for Presence Researchers (ISPR) Conference and the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality. We chose these outlets by selecting and expanding upon the outlets chosen in a recent meta-analysis on presence conducted by Cummings and Bailenson (2016). Based on concepts and terms that co-occurred frequently according to the subjective judgment of the researcher, we also conducted keyword searches in the EBSCO Host Communication & Mass Media databases, PsycNET, the Temple University ISPR Telepresence Literature Refshare database, and Google Scholar. Search terms included a combination of terms related to social presence, such as “social presence,” “co-presence,” “social richness,” “computers as social actors,” “virtual reality,” “virtual environments,” and “immersion” in addition to predictors that we identified during our search including “modality,” “HMD,” “realism,” “stereoscopy,” “haptics,” “audio,” “display,” “tracking,” “gender,” “agency,” and “proximity.”

Once the candidate studies were identified, we selected studies that (1) used at least one self-report measure of social presence (or the synonymous concept of co-presence); if social presence and co-presence were measured separately, we considered both measures in our review, (2) included experimental manipulations and/or questionnaire items (e.g., personality, gender, etc.) that were used to assess the predictors of social presence, and (3) conducted quantitative analyses to determine whether a predictor significantly influenced perceptions of social presence.

Studies that measured social presence with related but distinct constructs (e.g., interactivity, positive affect, social influence, telepresence, interpersonal attraction, electronic propinquity) were not included, as they do not uniquely measure the extent to which one feels as if she is present with a sentient being. Similarly, concepts that share theoretical similarities with, but do not uniquely measure social presence, were excluded. One significant concept that was not included due to this criterion was plausibility illusion (Slater, 2009). Plausibility illusion refers to the credibility of the events that are unfolding in the virtual environment. According to Slater (2009), plausibility illusion is orthogonal to the “sense of being there,” which is conceptualized as place illusion. Plausibility illusion shares similarities with social presence as it captures the extent to which the user feels that he or she is interacting with an actual social being (Biocca et al., 2003; Lee et al., 2006a). However, plausibility illusion also includes dimensions other than social presence because the concept simultaneously captures the credibility of various aspects of a virtual scenario, not just the virtual human (Slater et al., 2010).

Finally, while we are aware of the strengths of behavioral and physiological measures and limitations of self-report measures (Slater, 2004; Friedman et al., 2006), we did not include studies that exclusively used behavioral and/or physiological measures of social presence to reduce variance and maximize internal validity when comparing study findings. The criteria used to select studies were adapted from Cummings and Bailenson (2016) to fit the current context. Based on this process (Figure 1), we were able to identify 152 studies with 233 separate findings regarding the factors that can predict social presence. When discussing the results, we assumed that the findings of the studies were true and correct.

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Flow chart of study identification. *Social presence is not a dependent variable: 27; No quantitative self-report measure of social presence: 24; Review article: 9; General presence is measured: 6; Work-in-progress: 3; Measure not reported: 1; Conference presentation of published article: 5.

Findings: what predicts social presence?

Considering that social presence was initially considered to be an inherent quality of a communication medium (Short et al., 1976), it is natural that a significant body of research explored how modality influences social presence. For similar reasons, the technological affordances that enable the reproduction of various social cues (e.g., presence of a visual representation, haptic feedback, etc.) have received considerable attention as potential antecedents of social presence. However, while earlier studies on the predictors of social presence focused almost entirely on immersive qualities, more recent studies also consider the impact of contextual and individual factors, perhaps as an acknowledgment of social presence as a subjective experience. The following sections will thus categorize and discuss the predictors of social presence using three overarching categories that emerged while conducting the systematic review: immersive qualities, contextual properties, and individual traits.

Immersive qualities and social presence

General modality

Much of the earlier social presence research focused on how modalities with varying levels of immersion afford different levels of presence. It is important to note that while research on general modality does offer insight into how certain technological features (e.g., depth cues, display, stereoscopy) might influence social presence, it compares media that vary across multiple features, which makes it difficult to isolate the affordance(s) that influenced perceptions of social presence. This camp of research is well-aligned with the traditions of social presence theory (Short et al., 1976) and media richness theory (Daft and Lengel, 1986) in that they are grounded on the assumption that the technological qualities of a medium afford different levels of social presence. In their meta-analysis on the impact of immersion on telepresence, Cummings and Bailenson (2016) similarly found that general modality (e.g., comparing an HMD with head-tracking to a desktop computer) was one of the most frequently studied predictors of telepresence.

As can be seen in Table 1, research on the impact of modality on social presence to date most often compares (1) CMC with FtF communication, (2) text-based CMC with other forms of audiovisual modalities, and (3) immersive virtual environments with non-immersive virtual environments. Although it is less common, a small number of studies also compare different types of virtual environments (e.g., Heldal et al., 2005; Johnsen and Lok, 2008).

Because FtF interaction is considered to be the gold-standard for social presence (Biocca et al., 2001), a considerable amount of research compares FtF communication with CMC to determine how successful a given system is at establishing a social presence. Most of these studies found that communicators experience lower levels of social presence during CMC compared to FtF conversations. For example, Cortese and Seo (2012) found that CMC participants felt less social presence than FtF participants while they were discussing issues mentioned in a news article for 20 min. More specifically, the researchers operationalized social presence to assess both how sociable their partner was and how “co-located” they felt with their partner, and found that FtF communicators experienced higher levels of social presence compared to their CMC counterparts. Similar results were found in online learning contexts (Zhan and Mei, 2013) and decision-making scenarios (Biocca et al., 2001; Alge et al., 2003). One exception to this trend was Francescato et al. (2006) study, which found no differences in perceived social presence between students who completed a seminar series online, compared to those who completed the same seminar face-to-face. It is important to note, however, that participants completed the seminar series over a period of 2 months. This extended experiment period may be why the authors did not find a difference between CMC and FtF conditions. Just as Walther (1992) found that granting additional time to CMC interactants led to equally desirable communication outcomes as their FtF counterparts, the 2-month period employed by Francescato et al. (2006) may have been sufficient for both groups of participants to adapt their communication strategies to the given platforms and attain similar levels of social presence.

Studies that compared text-based CMC with more vivid forms of communication modalities (e.g., audio, video, avatar) also found that participants felt the lowest level of social presence when communicating via text-based CMC compared to “richer” forms of media, when given the same amount of time (e.g., Bente et al., 2008; Appel et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2013b). For example, Bente et al. (2008) measured how much social presence participants felt while selecting the best job candidate out of a pool of six applicants in a text chat, audio, audio with video, or avatar communication platform. They found that participants in the text chat condition felt significantly less social presence when compared with participants who communicated via other modalities. Similarly, studies that compared text-based CMC with modalities that offered audiovisual cues, such as videoconferencing (Sallnäs, 2005; Kim et al., 2014), avatar-mediated communication, and audio communication (Kim et al., 2013b) generally found that text-based CMC elicits lower social presence than modalities that offer additional audiovisual cues.

While audio and video modalities appear to have a clear advantage over text-based CMC, the strength of audiovisual modalities over audio-only modalities is less clear. Of the nine studies identified in Table 1 (de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001; Yoo and Alavi, 2001; Sallnäs, 2005, Study 1 & 2; Bailenson et al., 2006; Bente et al., 2008; Homer et al., 2008; de Greef, 2014; Gimpel et al., 2016) that offered a comparison between audio-only and audio-video modalities, only four found that the addition of video increased perceptions of social presence (de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001; Yoo and Alavi, 2001; de Greef, 2014; Gimpel et al., 2016). While the sample size is small (n = 9), these results suggest that linear increments of immersion do not necessarily lead to corresponding increases in social presence. Considering that two of the studies (de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001; de Greef, 2014) that did find that adding video increased social presence required participants to complete a visual task, while the studies that did not find differences between the audio-only and audio-video conditions provided participants with tasks that had a weaker visual component (e.g., decision-making task, interview task), it is possible that the nature of the task moderates the benefits of adding video to audio. Table 2 shows details of these studies.

Table 2.

Summary of study information.

Reference Social presence measurement Task(s) Target (AP, CA) Location
Ahn et al., 2014 Temple Presence Inventory (Lombard et al., 2009) View a virtual character on a screen CA Korea
Al-Natour et al., 2011 Gefen and Straub, 2003 Online shopping task CA Canada
Alge et al., 2003 Custom construct Collaborate in teams of 3 on two tasks (brainstorming and solution-seeking) AP USA
Alghamdi et al., 2016 (Study 1 & 2) Short et al., 1976 Tidy up a virtual house AP New Zealand
Appel et al., 2012 Bailenson et al., 2001; Networked Minds Questionnaire (Biocca et al., 2001) Interact with agent (but framed as agent or avatar) CA USA
Axelsson et al., 2001 Custom construct Complete a Rubik's cube-type puzzle AP Sweden
Aymerich-Franch et al., 2012 Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Give a speech to a virtual audience CA USA
Bailenson and Yee, 2005 Slater et al., 2000 Listen to agent presentation CA USA
Bailenson et al., 2001 Custom construct Walk up to virtual human, read and memorize information on front/back tags CA USA
Bailenson et al., 2003 (Study 1 & 2) Custom construct Approach virtual human (Study 1)/Observe virtual human approach participants (Study 2) CA USA
Bailenson et al., 2005 Custom construct Look at virtual agent CA USA
Bailenson et al., 2006 Networked Minds Questionnaire (Biocca et al., 2001) Interact with partner & Emoting task AP USA
Basdogan et al., 2000 Custom construct Move a ring with the help of a partner without touching the wire AP USA
Bente et al., 2007 (Study 1 & 2) Networked Minds Questionnaire (Biocca et al., 2001) Get-acquainted task AP Germany
Bente et al., 2008 Biocca et al., 2001; Nowak, 2001; Kumar and Benbasat, 2002; Tu, 2002 Hire the most suitable job candidate (Management decision task) (hire most suitable job candidate) AP Germany
Bouchard et al., 2013 Gerhard et al., 2001; Bailenson et al., 2005 Interact with a virtual cat, view virtual humans in pain CA Canada
Bracken, 2005 Lombard et al., 2000 Watch a video (The Beauty of Japan) AP USA
Casanueva and Blake, 2001 (Study 1 & 2) Custom construct In groups of 3 participants, read a story and collaboratively rank the characters AP South Africa
Chellali et al., 2011 Not reported Perform a needle insertion task in dyads after training session AP France
Cho et al., 2015 Wei and Chen, 2012 Take online course on Second Life AP Singapore
Choi and Kwak, 2017 (Study 1 & 2) Short et al., 1976; Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Engage in a video call with a remote participant using a telepresence robot AP Korea
Choi et al., 2001 Short et al., 1976; Lombard, 1995 Navigate an advertising website CA USA
Chuah et al., 2013 Bailenson et al., 2003 Anesthesiologists interact with two embodied conversational agents (nurse & patient's daughter) CA USA
Christie, 1974 Custom construct Discuss a modern business issue AP UK
Clayes and Anderson, 2007 Short et al., 1976 Participates complete focused and non-focused tasks in groups of three people AP Scotland
Cortese and Seo, 2012 Networked Minds Questionnaire (Biocca et al., 2001) View news website and discuss issues AP USA
Croes et al., 2016 Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Get-acquainted task AP The Netherlands
Daher et al., 2016 Harms and Biocca, 2004 Play a guessing game CA USA
Dalzel-Job, 2014 (Study 2) Custom construct Carry out 10 tasks in a virtual environment with a partner AP Scotland
de Greef, 2014 IPO-Social Presence Questionnaire (de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001) Select pictures with partner based on instructions AP The Netherlands
de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001 IPO-Social Presence Questionnaire (de Greef and Ijsselsteijn, 2001) Use a PhotoShare application with partner AP The Netherlands
DeSchryver et al., 2009 Richardson and Swan, 2003 Participate in online discussion forum for psychology class AP USA
Dicke et al., 2010 Custom construct Listen to an audio recording of multiple speakers AP Finland
Felnhofer et al., 2014 Bailenson et al., 2003 Navigate in a café in an IVE and interact with a waiter and a stranger CA Austria
Felnhofer et al., 2018 Bailenson et al., 2003 Navigate in a café in an IVE and interact with a waiter and a stranger CA Austria
Feng et al., 2016 Lee and Nass, 2005 Read supporter seeker's profile and respond on an online forum AP USA
Fortin and Dholakia, 2005 Short et al., 1976 View online ad and surf website CA USA
Francescato et al., 2006 Cuddetta et al., 2003 Complete small-group exercises as part of a seminar series AP Italy
Gajadhar et al., 2008 Social Presence in Gaming Questionnaire (IJsselsteijn et al., 2008) Play game with partner AP The Netherlands
Garau et al., 2003 Custom construct Participate in a role-playing negotiation task AP UK
Garau et al., 2005 Custom construct Enter virtual room and observe surroundings CA UK
Giannopoulos et al., 2008 Basdogan et al., 2000 Solve a jigsaw puzzle with a partner AP Spain
Gimpel et al., 2016 Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Interact with a digital service agent (while applying for fictitious credit card) AP Germany
Gong, 2008 Short et al., 1976 Interact with virtual agent on how to respond to dilemma scenarios CA USA
Gong et al., 2007 (Study 1 & 2) Short et al., 1976 Interact with virtual agent on an e-commerce website CA USA
Guadagno et al., 2007 (Study 1 & 2) Swinth and Blascovich, 2001 Listen to agent presentation CA USA
Guadagno et al., 2011 6-item questionnaire (details not reported) Interact with a virtual peer counselor CA USA
Han et al., 2016 Gefen and Straub, 2003 View (fictitious) corporate Twitter accounts AP Korea
Hatta and Ken-ichi, 2008 Short et al., 1976 Negotiate on the price of a used car AP Japan
Hauber et al., 2005 Short et al., 1976; Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Desert survival task AP New Zealand
Hauber et al., 2006 Short et al., 1976 Collaborative photo-matching task AP New Zealand
Hauber et al., 2012 Short et al., 1976 Collaborative celebrity-quote matching task AP New Zealand
Hayes, 2015 Bailenson et al., 2006 Deliver a lesson to virtual students CA USA
Heidicker et al., 2017 Biocca et al., 2001 Desert survival task AP Germany
Heldal et al., 2005 Custom construct Complete a Rubik's cube-type puzzle AP Sweden
Herrewijn and Poels, 2015 Social Presence in Gaming Questionnaire (IJsselsteijn et al., 2008) Play a multiplayer game AP Belgium
Hills, 2005 (Study 1) Networked Minds Questionnaire (Short et al., 1976; Biocca et al., 2001) Desert survival task AP New Zealand
Hills, 2005 (Study 2) Short et al., 1976 Build a virtual house with a partner AP New Zealand
Hills et al., 2005 Short et al., 1976 Evaluate five house designs AP New Zealand
Homer et al., 2008 Kim and Biocca, 1997 Viewed computer-based multimedia presentation of lecture AP USA
Horvath and Lombard, 2010 Temple Presence Inventory (Lombard et al., 2009) Test an interactive website for the submission of college admission application CA USA
Hoyt et al., 2003 Custom construct Categorization task & pattern recognition task CA USA
James et al., 2011 Custom construct Mining operators collaborate to move a mining vehicle through a maze AP Australia
Järvelä et al., 2016 Networked Minds Questionnaire (Harms and Biocca, 2004) View a video AP Finland
Jin, 2009 Custom construct View a virtual Apple store representative agent CA USA
Jin, 2011 Lee et al., 2006a,b Interact with health consultant avatar AP USA
Jin, 2010 Lee et al., 2006a,b Interact with a recommendation agent on Second Life CA USA
Jin, 2012 Study 2 Lee et al., 2006a,b FtF communication, followed by Avatar-to-Avatar communication AP USA
Johnsen and Lok, 2008 Bailenson et al., 2005 Interview virtual patient CA USA
Johnson, 2011 Custom construct Take online course AP USA
Jordan et al., 2002 Basdogan et al., 2000 Lift a cube with a virtual partner and keep it off the “ground” for as long as possible AP UK/USA
Jung et al., 2017 Custom construct View online dating site profile AP USA
Kang and Gratch, 2014 Short et al., 1976 Interview-style interaction CA USA
Kang and Watt, 2013 Custom construct Interact with partner on a mobile phone AP USA
Kang et al., 2008 Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Interact with partner on a mobile phone AP USA
Kim, 2016 Lee et al., 2006a,b Listen to information about local weather, traffic, and events CA China
Kim and Sundar, 2012 Lee et al., 2006a,b Browse sunscreen company website CA USA
Kim and Sundar, 2014 Gefen and Straub, 2003 Participate in an interactive online health community AP USA
Kim and Timmerman, 2018 Short et al., 1976; Lombard et al., 2000 Play an exergame (Nintendo Wii Fit Hula Hoop game) CA USA
Kim et al., 2014 Short et al., 1976 Online chat (listen to a story) AP USA
Kim et al., 2013a Lee et al., 2006a,b Interact with a Nao robot CA Korea
Kim et al., 2013b Networked Minds Questionnaire (Biocca et al., 2001) Interact with a partner in an online apparel store and choose an item AP Korea
Kim et al., 2004 Basdogan et al., 2000 Lift a box with a virtual partner AP UK
Kim et al., 2012 (Study 1) Nowak and Biocca, 2003 View a virtual human and indicate where he/she is looking or pointing AP Canada
Kim et al., 2012 (Study 2) Nowak and Biocca, 2003 View a virtual instructor in a yoga pose and instruct a partner to reproduce the pose AP Canada
Kim et al., 2016 Bailenson et al., 2003; Harms and Biocca, 2004 Answer questions from a virtual human (MBTI personality test) CA USA
Kim et al., 2017 Bailenson et al., 2003 Answer questions from a virtual human (MBTI personality test) CA USA
Kothgassner et al., 2014 Bailenson et al., 2003 Play a ball-tossing game CA Austria
Kothgassner et al., 2017 Bailenson et al., 2003 Play a ball-tossing game CA Austria
Lee, 2013 Nowak and Biocca, 2003; Lee and Nass, 2005 View politician on Twitter or on television AP Korea
Lee and Jang, 2013 (Study 1 & 2) Lee and Nass, 2005 View politician's Twitter page or newspaper interview AP Korea
Lee and Nass, 2004 Custom construct Listen to online reviews CA USA
Lee and Nass, 2005 (Study 1 & 2) Custom construct Listen to online reviews CA USA
Lee and Oh, 2012 (Study 1) Nowak and Biocca, 2003 View politician's Twitter page AP Korea
Lee and Shin, 2012 Nowak and Biocca, 2003; Lee and Nass, 2005 View politician's Twitter page AP Korea
Lee and Shin, 2014 Nowak and Biocca, 2003; Lee and Nass, 2005 View politician's Twitter page or newspaper interview AP Korea
Lee et al., 2005 Biocca et al., 2001 Interact with an Aibo robot CA USA
Lee et al., 2006a Custom construct Interact with an Aibo robot CA USA
Lee et al., 2006b (Study 1 & 2) Custom construct Interact with virtual or physical social robot without (Study 1) or without (Study 2) tactile restrictions CA USA
Lee et al., 2007 Custom construct Participate in an educational quiz game AP Korea
Lee et al., 2016 Harms and Biocca, 2004 Play 20 questions with a virtual human CA USA
Lee et al., 2017 Bailenson et al., 2003 Observe a virtual human walk, approach the participant, and leave CA USA
Lee et al., 2018 Basdogan et al., 2000; Bailenson et al., 2003 Walk around a virtual or real human that is engaging in various behaviors (standing, jumping, walking) CA USA
Li et al., 2015 Lee and Nass, 2005 Read a support-seeking post and type/post responses AP USA
Li et al., 2016 Lee et al., 2006a,b Watch an online lecture CA USA
Lim and Lee-Won, 2017 Nowak and Biocca, 2003; Lee and Nass, 2005; Lee and Shin, 2014 View a (fictitious) food company's Twitter feed AP USA
Lowden and Hostetter, 2012 Hostetter and Busch, 2006 Answer survey regarding videoconferencing experience AP USA
McGregor, 2018 Lee and Oh, 2012 View a screenshot of a political candidate's Twitter feed AP USA
Meyer and Lohner, 2012 Gunawardena, 1995; Swan, 2002 Watch an online news video AP USA
Moreno and Mayer, 2004 Custom construct Receive a lesson on botany from computerized agent CA USA
Mühlbach et al., 1995 (Study 1) Custom construct Collaborative decision-making task and negotiating task via videoconference AP Germany
Nam et al., 2008 Schroeder et al., 2001 Play air hockey game with remote partner AP USA
Nowak, 2003 Short et al., 1976 Desert survival task with text-based CMC AP USA
Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Custom construct Get to know partner and compete in a virtual scavenger hunt CA USA
Nowak et al., 2009 Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Prepare an oral report in groups of 3-4 students over 5 weeks AP USA
Oh et al., 2016 Networked Minds (Harms and Biocca, 2004) Play 20 questions and get acquainted with a virtual partner AP USA
Pan et al., 2008 Custom construct Listen to agent presentation CA UK
Park and Sundar, 2015 Networked Minds (Harms and Biocca, 2004) Interact with a customer service agent CA Korea
Peña et al., 2017 Networked Minds (Harms and Biocca, 2004) Play a video game in a single-player or multi-player mode CA & AP Korea
Phillips and Lee, 2005 (Study 3) Choi et al., 2001 View website with spokes-character CA USA
Qin et al., 2013 (Study 2) Witmer and Singer, 1998; Kim et al., 2004 Collaborate with a partner to complete a ring-moving task AP China
Qiu and Benbasat, 2005 Short et al., 1976 Browse online electronics store, interact with customer service agent, and purchase items AP Canada
Qiu and Benbasat, 2010 Gefen and Straub, 2003 Interact with product recommendation agent CA Canada
Rauh and Renfro, 2004 Short et al., 1976 Participants talk with each other about a set of topics using a videoconferencing system AP USA
Rauwers et al., 2016 Gefen and Straub, 2003; Lee et al., 2011 Interact with a digital magazine CA USA
Robb et al., 2016 Bailenson et al., 2003 Medical practitioners work with a virtual surgeon and a virtual anesthesiologist to prepare for surgery CA USA
Richardson and Swan, 2003 Custom construct Take online course AP The Netherlands
Sallnäs, 2005 (Study 1) Short et al., 1976 & Custom construct Decision-making task AP Sweden
Sallnäs, 2010 (Short et al., 1976) modified Pass cubes without audio communication AP Sweden
Sallnäs et al., 2000 (Short et al., 1976) modified Perform multiple collaborative tasks with virtual blocks AP Sweden
Schroeder et al., 2001 Custom construct Complete a Rubik's cube-type puzzle AP Sweden
Schumann et al., 2017 (Study 2) Rüggenberg, 2007; Park and Sundar, 2015 Collaborate with a student from a different university (confederate) to develop ideas for an event AP Belgium
Shahid et al., 2012 Garau et al., 2001; Biocca and Harms, 2002 Play game with partner AP The Netherlands
Shimoda, 2007 Short et al., 1976 Participate in a multi-session online system that delivers messages that encourages smokers to quit CA USA
Siriaraya and Ang, 2012 Slater et al., 2000; Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Select avatar and interact with partner AP UK
Skalski and Tamborini, 2007 Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Listen to health information CA USA
Skalski and Whitbred, 2010 Lombard et al., 2009 Play a shooter game CA USA
Slater et al., 1999 Custom construct Give a presentation to a virtual audience CA UK
Slater et al., 2000 Custom construct Word puzzle & monitor group member (for some participants) AP UK
Steed et al., 1999 Custom construct Collaborate in groups of three to carry out a puzzle-solving task. AP UK & Greece
Takatalo et al., 2011 Takatalo, 2002 Play a first-person driving game for 40 minutes CA Finland
Tanaka et al., 2015 Nakanishi et al., 2008 Talk with a remote partner about an issue AP Japan
Thayalan et al., 2012 Custom construct Take online course AP Malaysia
Verhagen et al., 2014 Yoo and Alavi, 2001 Interact with virtual customer service agent CA The Netherlands
Vishwanath, 2016 (Study 2) Slater et al., 1998 Simulated phishing attack AP Singapore
von der Pütten et al., 2010 (Bailenson et al., 2001) and Networked Minds Questionnaire (Biocca et al., 2001) Interact with Rapport Agent CA USA
Wideström et al., 2000 Custom construct Complete a Rubik's cube-type puzzle AP Sweden
Wu et al., 2014 Bailenson et al., 2003 Complete 4 nurse shifts for a virtual patient CA USA
Wu et al., 2015 Social Presence in Gaming Questionnaire (IJsselsteijn et al., 2008) Bowl with a team on an exergame platform or with an indoor bowling set AP Singapore
Xu, 2014 Short et al., 1976 Read online reviews AP USA
Yoo and Alavi, 2001 Short et al., 1976 ”Van Management“ task (Mennecke and Wheeler, 1993) AP USA
Zelenkauskaite and Bucy, 2009 Custom construct Watch four videos of a politician AP USA
Zhan and Mei, 2013 Social Presence Inventory (Biocca and Harms, 2002) Take a course online or offline AP China
Zibrek et al., 2017 (Study 1 & 2) Bailenson et al., 2003 Approach a virtual character CA Ireland

AP, Actual person; includes “fictitious” people if all of the virtual content was directly generated by an actual person (e.g., Twitter account of a fictitious politician).

CA, Computer algorithm; includes instances wherein pre-programmed messages and/or animations were selected by a human controller (“Wizard of Oz” technique; Kim et al., 2016).

A small number of studies (e.g., Steed et al., 1999; Slater et al., 2000; Moreno and Mayer, 2004) have also compared immersive virtual platforms (e.g., HMD, cave automatic virtual environment; CAVE) with non-immersive ones (e.g., Desktop). While the literature shows a general consensus that immersive virtual environments are more likely to generate greater feelings of telepresence compared to non-immersive virtual platforms (Cummings and Bailenson, 2016), this does not appear to be the case for social presence. Among the 10 studies that we identified, only two studies found significant differences in social presence between an immersive platform and a non-immersive one (Schroeder et al., 2001; Heldal et al., 2005). These results, coupled with the fact that the addition of video does not consistently increase one's sense of social presence, suggest that once a threshold is met, increasing the immersive quality of a modality does not automatically lead to increased social presence. As such, it may be both theoretically and practically important to isolate features and explore the extent to which each feature does (or does not) contribute to increasing social presence to further understand the dimensions of immersion that affect social presence.

Visual representation

One of the unique features that influence social presence in virtual environments is the visual representation of the communication partner. Studies that focus on visual representations explore how the appearance of the partner in virtual reality influences one's sense of social presence. These studies generally manipulate (1) the presence or absence of a visual representation and (2) the visual realism of the virtual representation. Visual realism consists of photographic, anthropomorphic, and behavioral (or communicative) realism (Harris et al., 2009). Photographic and anthropomorphic realism both pertain to the appearance of the virtual representation; the former assesses how “realistic” it appears, while the latter refers to how “humanlike” it is. In contrast, behavioral realism is defined as the extent to which the virtual representation behaves in the way an actual person would behave (e.g., blink naturally, shift positions, “breathe,” etc.).

While there are a few exceptions (e.g., Qiu and Benbasat, 2005; Kim and Sundar, 2012), most of the current evidence indicates that people feel higher levels of social presence when there is a visual representation available, as can be noted in Table 1. For example, participants who were able to see their partner's avatar reported higher levels of social presence compared to those who spoke with an “invisible” partner after they shopped for clothes together in a virtual shopping mall (Kim et al., 2013b). Another study (Feng et al., 2016) similarly found that participants felt greater social presence toward online support-seekers who provided a profile picture compared to those who did not. Furthermore, participants were more likely to give responses that reflected an awareness of and adaptation to the support-seeker and his/her context (person-centeredness) when there was a profile picture available, an effect that was partially mediated by social presence.

In addition to the impact of providing a visual representation, studies have also examined how the extent to which a visual representation behaves like an actual person (i.e., behavioral realism) affects social presence. Behavioral realism can be operationalized by the complete absence or presence of nonverbal behavior (animations) or how much the virtual human's nonverbal behavior is consistent with actual humans (e.g., presence or absence of eye gaze). Studies generally show that behavioral realism is a powerful predictor of perceived social presence. These positive effects are most consistently found when the avatar's or agent's behavior indicates awareness of their communication partner's presence (e.g., mutual gaze, nodding at appropriate times, blushing). For example, von der Pütten et al. (2010) found that participants felt higher levels of social presence when they interacted with a computerized agent (Rapport Agent) that displayed appropriate feedback behavior by nodding its head compared to one that did not. Similarly, Pan et al. (2008) found that participants felt the highest level of social presence when a virtual agent blushed strongly (whole-face blush) after making a mistake during a presentation. Participants also felt higher levels of social presence when their communication partner maintained longer mutual eye contact with them compared to when he or she did not (Bente et al., 2008, Study 1); when the duration of the mutual eye gaze was too long (which is behaviorally unrealistic), however, participants responded negatively (Bente et al., 2008, Study 2). The significance of behavioral realism in fostering a sense of social presence may also explain why previous studies failed to find a positive association between the use immersive avatar-mediated VR systems and social presence. More specifically, the lack of significant results may have been due to the fairly limited level of behavioral realism afforded by older platforms.

In contrast to the relatively consistent effects of behavioral realism on social presence, studies on the impact of photographic and anthropomorphic realism reveal mixed results. While some studies show an increase in social presence when the visual representation is more photographically or anthropomorphically realistic (e.g., Kang and Watt, 2013), others report no differences (e.g., Bailenson et al., 2001; Bente et al., 2008) or even a reduction in social presence (e.g., Nowak and Biocca, 2003). The inconsistency in these results may be explained by three factors. First, photographic realism may simply not be the most crucial component of social presence. As Blascovich et al. (2002) and Nass et al. (1994) argue, the appearance of the visual representation might simply be less important than behavioral social cues. Second, the social presence questionnaires used may not have been sensitive enough to capture the subtle differences caused by variations in the appearance of the virtual human. Finally, these inconsistent effects may be explained by the varying levels of behavioral realism in each study. Studies that manipulate both the appearance and behavior of the visual representation show strong support for consistency effects (Garau et al., 2003; Bailenson et al., 2005). That is, participants feel greater social presence when the level of behavioral realism is consistent with the level of photographic realism. Garau et al. (2003) found, for example, that while increasing the level of photographic realism did not have a main effect on social presence, participants felt higher levels of social presence when they interacted with an avatar high in photographic realism compared to one low in photographic realism when the avatar displayed realistic eye gaze behavior (i.e., high behavioral realism). The opposite effect was found for avatars low in behavioral realism. In a separate study, Bailenson et al. (2005) also noted that the consistency between behavioral and photographic realism positively predicts social presence.

To summarize, the current literature offers evidence that (1) the presence of a visual representation and (2) a more behaviorally realistic visual representation enhance social presence. In contrast, while both photographic and anthropomorphic realism can enhance perceptions of social presence, this effect appears to be contingent on certain boundary conditions, including consistency with the level of behavioral realism.

Interactivity

While real-time virtual communication between actual people is usually characterized by high levels of interactivity, the level of interactivity afforded by a computerized agent can vary. As such, studies that explored the impact of interactivity on social presence generally looked into how an agent's interactivity influences social presence. Considering that social presence is dependent on how strongly one feels that he or she is talking with an intelligent being that is aware of his or her presence (Biocca, 1997), it is unsurprising that the extant research, albeit with some boundary conditions, offers robust evidence that interactivity is positively associated with social presence. In their study on social agents, for example, Skalski and Tamborini (2007) invited participants to listen to a health message on blood pressure. They found that participants who were given the opportunity to interact with the agent by letting it know the order in which they wished to receive the health information felt higher levels of social presence compared to participants who did not have this opportunity. Fortin and Dholakia (2005) similarly found positive effects of interactivity, although their results were qualified by participants' need for cognition (NFC); participants high in NFC showed a linear increase in social presence as the level of interactivity increased, while those low in NFC exhibited a ceiling effect wherein social presence increased between low and medium levels of interactivity, but plateaued for medium and high levels of interactivity.

Haptic feedback

Due to the significance of touch in physical interactions, a lot of effort has been—and continues to be—made to introduce interpersonal touch through haptic devices in virtual environments. The current review identified haptic feedback as one of the most commonly studied immersive qualities that influence social presence, apart from visual representation and interactivity. With the exception of one study (Sallnäs et al., 2000), all of the 10 studies that we identified found a positive relationship between haptic feedback and perceptions of social presence (Table 1). For example, participants felt higher levels of social presence when they received haptic feedback as they lifted a (virtual) box with a partner compared to when such feedback was not available (Kim et al., 2004). One thing to note is that, as Table 2 shows, most of the studies on haptic feedback reviewed in the present paper required participants to jointly manipulate an object (e.g., move blocks together, play air hockey). As such, the tasks themselves may have been biased to amplify the positive effects of haptic feedback compared to tasks that require less “manual” collaboration.

Depth cues (stereoscopy and motion parallax)

Stereoscopic displays create the illusion of depth by providing slightly different images to each eye. Motion parallax is a monocular depth cue wherein people perceive objects closer to them to be moving at a faster rate than objects a further distance. The studies that were identified in the present paper (Mühlbach et al., 1995; Takatalo et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2012; Ahn et al., 2014) suggest that the inclusion of depth cues increase social presence. In one study, for example, college freshmen viewed a virtual character (computerized agent) as it gave a 5-min news presentation about the school that they would be attending in either a stereoscopic or monoscopic display (Ahn et al., 2014). The researchers found that stereoscopy significantly increased perceptions of being together with the virtual character. Mühlbach et al. (1995) similarly found that participants felt greater social presence when they engaged in a video conferencing session using a stereoscopic display compared to a monoscopic one. Although the researchers of this study used “telepresence” to describe their outcome variable, the measures that they used (“It was as if we were all in the same room” and “It was like a real face-to-face meeting”) reflected social presence, rather than telepresence. While these studies point to a positive relationship between stereoscopy and social presence, more research is needed to support this hypothesis.

Audio quality

Research that investigated the impact of audio quality on social presence generally focused on how altering the number of sound channels influences perceptions of social presence. Surprisingly, we were unable to identify studies that addressed the impact of audio disturbances such as noise or dropout on social presence. While we only found three studies that manipulated audio quality, all of these studies found that improving audio quality leads to an increased sense of social presence. For example, Skalski and Whitbred (2010) conducted a study wherein participants were assigned to play a first-person shooter video game with either a 6-channel (Dolby 5.1) or 2-channel (Dolby Stereo) sound system. They found that the high audio-quality participants felt higher levels of social richness (i.e., social presence) than their low audio-quality counterparts. The authors also manipulated image quality, but no interaction effects were found between image and audio quality. In perhaps one of the earliest studies of social presence, Christie (1974) conducted a study wherein 36 businessmen discussed an important business topic in groups of six, and found that participants reported higher levels of social presence for the multi-speaker phone system than for the standard or high-fidelity speakerphone.

Display

A small number of studies also manipulated features of the display itself, namely image definition and display size, to examine their influence on social presence. The results of these studies yield mixed results. While two studies (Bracken, 2005; Ahn et al., 2014) found that more immersive displays (i.e., higher definition, larger screen size) led to higher social presence, two others (Skalski and Whitbred, 2010; James et al., 2011) were unable to find a significant effect of display on social presence. As such, more research is needed to understand when and how display qualities influence social presence.

Contextual properties and social presence

As mentioned above, recent studies have begun to expand research on the predictors of social presence from immersive qualities to contextual and individual properties. This shift in the landscape may, in part, be attributed to the fact that social presence is a subjective experience that is influenced by both the perceived physical and psychological distance between the interactants, not solely the technological qualities of a medium. As such, both contextual and individual factors that contribute to how familiar or close a virtual human feels may have an influence on social presence above and beyond immersion. The following sections will describe antecedents of social presence that are not associated with objective immersive qualities, but contextual and individual qualities that impact one's subjective perceptions of being together with another person.

Application of social psychology: personality/traits of virtual human

Multiple studies have applied well-established findings from social psychology for positive interpersonal evaluations (e.g., similarity attraction, social penetration theory, social identity theory, preference for consistency, etc.) to technology-mediated contexts to explore their relevance in interpersonal perceptions (e.g., Reeves and Nass, 1996; Jin, 2012; Verhagen et al., 2014). This line of research has found that most interpersonal dynamics that can be found in FtF contexts can be replicated in virtual environments with both agents and avatars. For example, Qiu and Benbasat (2010) found that participants were more likely to feel higher levels of social presence when they interacted with a virtual product recommendation agent whose appearance matched their ethnicity than one that did not, replicating findings based on social identity theory (Tajfel, 1979). In another study (Kang and Gratch, 2014), participants perceived more social presence when their virtual counselor (computerized agent) disclosed more personal information about itself, which offers support for Altman and Taylor's (1973) self-disclosure theory. Similarly, participants felt higher levels of social presence when their partner's virtual representation was similar to his or her actual physical appearance (Jin, 2012), which resonates with findings regarding preference for consistency (Festinger, 1962). These studies underscore the fact that social presence is not only influenced by immersive qualities that can objectively provide richer social cues, but also by psychological processes that allow individuals to interpret the available social cues in more positive (or negative) ways.

Agency

Differences in agency occur depending on whether or not the virtual human is controlled by an actual human (i.e., avatar) or a computerized algorithm (i.e., agent). Studies that explore the impact of (perceived) agency on social presence generally introduce the virtual human as an actual person or a computerized character prior to the interaction. Approximately half of the studies surveyed in this paper found that people felt higher levels of social presence when the virtual human was thought to be controlled by an actual person rather than by a computer program. For example, participants felt greater social presence when they believed that the Rapport Agent they were interacting with was a real person compared to when they thought it was an artificial intelligence (Appel et al., 2012). These results are in line with Blascovich et al. (2002) model of social influence, which posits that avatars require a lower threshold of realism than agents to yield social influence. While they did not explore the impact of agency on social presence using a questionnaire, another study showed that participants showed higher physiological arousal while playing a computer game when they thought their opponent was an avatar compared to when they thought it was an agent (Lim and Reeves, 2010). These findings echo a meta-analysis conducted by Fox et al. (2015) that found that avatars generally elicit greater social influence than agents.

The remaining half of the studies, however, suggests that participants perceive similar levels of social presence for both agents and avatars (Nowak and Biocca, 2003; von der Pütten et al., 2010; Dalzel-Job, 2014, Study 2; Kothgassner et al., 2014, 2017; Felnhofer et al., 2018). Considering the fact that the majority of the studies published prior to 2010 found a positive relationship between agency and social presence (4 out of 5 studies), while only a small number of the studies published after 2010 did (2 out of 7 studies), it is possible that users have started to develop different expectations regarding how an avatar (vs. agent) should behave and/or look in virtual environments, and that deviations from these media expectations can lead to less social presence or doubt of the veridicality of the experimental manipulation, regardless of purported agency.

Physical proximity

The present paper also identified five studies that explored the impact of absolute physical distance between interactants on feelings of social presence (e.g., Gajadhar et al., 2008; Croes et al., 2016; Järvelä et al., 2016). These studies consistently show a positive relationship between physical proximity and perceptions of social presence. To explore the impact of physical proximity on social presence, this line of research compared the social presence of participants who had completed an activity in the same room to those who had completed the same activity in different rooms. Of note is that participants who were in the same room were often able to see each other during the interaction, while those that were placed in separate locations remained visually anonymous. As such, it is difficult to determine if the purported effects of physical proximity were driven by physical closeness, visual (non)anonymity, or both. Only two of these studies (Hatta and Ken-ichi, 2008; Croes et al., 2016) were able to effectively separate the effects of visual anonymity from physical co-location. Croes et al. (2016) study found that both physical co-location and visibility (non-anonymity) separately and positively predicted social presence. Hatta and Ken-ichi (2008) found an interaction between physical proximity and visibility, such that while physical closeness did lead to higher levels of social presence for visually anonymous partners, this effect did not persist when partners could see each other. In light of these findings, it is possible to conjecture that the positive association between social presence and physical proximity found in the remaining studies stemmed from a combination of physical co-location and visibility. In sum, there is cogent evidence that physical closeness with the interaction target contributes to perceived psychological distance and social presence, but it is likely that this effect will be influenced by the visibility of the virtual partner.

Task type

Four studies (Kim et al., 2013a; de Greef, 2014; Herrewijn and Poels, 2015; Wu et al., 2015) explored the influence of task type on perceived social presence. In one study (Kim et al., 2013a), participants either took care of or were taken care of by a robot. The researchers found that participant felt higher levels of social presence when the robot was the caregiver, compared to when they were asked to take care of the robot. In another study, participants felt lower levels of social presence when they were asked to observe their partner play a multiplayer game compared to when their partner observed them or when they played the game together with their partner (Herrewijn and Poels, 2015). While it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from these studies due to the small sample size, they suggest that tasks that encourage self-directed attention (i.e., encourage the virtual human to focus on the participant) may increase social presence. Just as nonverbal cues that implied the virtual human's awareness of the participant increased social presence (e.g., Bente et al., 2008; Shahid et al., 2012), people may feel higher levels of social presence when the given task requires the virtual human to pay attention to and accommodate their behavior. More details about the tasks are given in Table 2.

Social cues about the presence of others

More recent studies (Choi and Kwak, 2017, Study 2; Lee and Nass, 2004; Lee et al., 2005; Kim and Sundar, 2014; Daher et al., 2016; Kim, 2016; Robb et al., 2016) have examined how the number of people or the mere presence of another person who is aware of the virtual environment (i.e., social cues) impacts feelings of social presence. In general, these studies show that seeing other people who share or interact with the same virtual environment as the user increases social presence. For example, Daher et al. (2016) found that being exposed to a conversation between a virtual human and a real person prior to the study increased feelings of social presence for the participant after interacting with the same virtual human. Choi and Kwak (2017, Study 2) found that participants felt a stronger sense of social presence when they were communicating with multiple remote partners via a telepresence robot compared to a single remote partner. These results are in line with the findings of Kim (2016) and Lee and Nass (2004), who also found that multiple virtual communicators increase feelings of social presence. In contrast to these findings, Robb et al. (2016) found that having a human teammate did not appear to increase the perceived social presence of a virtual medical practitioner. Overall, however, the majority of the research suggests that being in a context wherein individuals are exposed to cues that indicate a social context (e.g., conversation, partner, group, etc.) can lead to heightened levels of social presence. Considering the non-significant findings of Robb et al. (2016) and the relatively small number of studies, however, more research is needed to conclusively understand the implications of co-present others on social presence.

Identity cues

Finally, studies have also explored the provision of identity cues (e.g., name, portrait picture) as a contextual factor that influences social presence, and found that increasing the number of identity cues enhances feelings of social presence (Li et al., 2015; Feng et al., 2016; Choi and Kwak, 2017; Schumann et al., 2017). Given the fact that social presence is contingent on the extent to which an individual feels that he or she is in the presence of a “real person,” it is natural that providing participants with cues that offer insight into the “true” identity of their virtual partner(s) enhances social presence.

Individual differences and social presence

Demographic characteristics: gender and age

As can be noted in Table 1, two of the most commonly examined individual differences in relation to social presence are the gender and age of the user. Most of the studies that explored the relationship between users' demographic variables and social presence did not specifically focus on these demographic variables, but included them as covariates or control variables in their analyses. In terms of gender, the majority of the surveyed studies found that females experience higher levels of social presence compared to males (e.g., Giannopoulos et al., 2008; Johnson, 2011). Age, in contrast, does not appear to have a strong association with social presence. The age range of the seven studies that explored the relationship between age and social presence are as follows: Cho et al. (2015): 21–44, Felnhofer et al. (2014): range not reported (M = 23.34, SD = 2.73), Hauber et al. (2005): 19–63, Kim et al. (2004): not reported, Lim and Richardson (2016): 24–58, Richardson and Swan (2003): 19–63, Siriaraya and Ang (2012): 22–80. Five of these found no significant relationship between age and social presence. However, considering the fact that the remaining two studies (Siriaraya and Ang, 2012; Felnhofer et al., 2014) both found that older participants tended to experience lower levels of social presence, it may be worth exploring if factors such as familiarity with a given technology or openness to new experiences influence perceptions of social presence.

Psychological traits

As can be noted in Table 1, more recent research explored the impact of psychological traits on social presence (e.g., Giannopoulos et al., 2008; Jin, 2010; Cortese and Seo, 2012; Kim et al., 2013a). These studies either looked at the impact of an individual's (1) propensity to become immersed in a virtual environment (e.g., immersive tendency, transportability) or (2) attitudes toward social interactions (e.g., communication apprehension, interdependent construal, extraversion, need to belong) on social presence. These studies showed that people who have stronger immersive tendencies are also more likely to experience stronger social presence. For instance, (Kim et al., 2013a) found that participants who were higher in immersive tendency were more likely to feel stronger social presence when interacting with a social robot. More interestingly, studies also found that individuals who value or enjoy social interactions experience higher levels of social presence. Jin (2010), for example, found that individuals who had interdependent self-construals experienced stronger social presence. There are two non-exclusive explanations for these findings; first, individuals who have positive attitudes toward social interactions may have a stronger desire to feel social presence and thus try harder to gratify this motivation during a virtual interaction. Second, people who are less socially oriented may lack the ability to adequately attend to the social information at hand (Cortese and Seo, 2012), and consequently experience lower levels of social presence than their more socially oriented counterparts even with the same amount of social cues. Overall, these studies highlight the importance of considering individual differences when examining features in a virtual environment that might influence social presence.

Discussion

Thus far, the present paper defined social presence and explored the technological, contextual, and individual qualities that can influence perceptions of social presence. Overall, we found that immersion and context have a positive effect on social presence, although there do appear to be ceiling effects and boundary conditions. While demographic information, and psychological traits associated with positive attitudes toward social interactions also tended to increase participants' feelings of social presence, the effects of demographic characteristics were less conclusive. Although we interpreted null findings to indicate the absence of a significant effect, it is important to note that several of the studies were conducted on a small number of participants (see Table 3). As such, some of the non-significant results can also be interpreted as inconclusive findings, and thus merit further research. As mentioned before, while earlier studies on the predictors of social presence focused primarily on the impact of immersive features, a growing number of researchers have begun to consider contextual and individual features as factors that can increase or decrease feelings of social presence (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Proportion of studies that examine immersive, contextual, and individual predictors of social presence.

One caveat to the present review is that social presence was operationalized in a number of different ways depending on the study (see Table 2). Considering the fact that questionnaire wording can influence responses (Borgers et al., 2004), it is possible that the use of different measures may account, at least in part, for why the same feature predicted social presence in some cases, but not in others. As social presence is often measured in different contexts (e.g., human-agent interaction, human-human interaction, etc.), some diversity in measures is inevitable (Biocca et al., 2003). However, more effort is needed to build a “foundation for theory and measure of social presence with greater explanatory and predictive power” (Biocca et al., 2003, p. 474).

While the variability of sample size per predictor necessitates caution in interpreting our results, we found that depth cues, audio quality, haptic feedback, and interactivity often had positive effects on social presence (Figure 3). In contrast, there influence of general modality, visual representation, and display were somewhat weaker. Among contextual factors, physical proximity, identity cues, and the personality/traits of the virtual human were often significant predictors of social presence. Somewhat surprisingly, the effects of agency were less conclusive (Figure 4). In terms of demographic factors, neither age nor gender appeared to have a clear effect on social presence. In contrast, certain psychological traits (e.g., transportability, extraversion, need to belong) tended to predict social presence. However, as much of the available research focuses on a select number of predictors such as general modality, visual representations, and personality/traits of the virtual other, more studies are needed before we can draw concrete conclusions about the impact of certain features (Figure 5).

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Effects of immersive features on social presence. *Other refers to moderated or non-linear results.

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Effects of contextual features on social presence. *Other refers to moderated or non-linear results.

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Number of studies that explore each antecedent of social presence.

One interesting point to note is that the majority of the studies identified in this paper frame social presence as an “absolute good.” Social presence is often used to assess how “successful” a given communication system is at emulating the gold-standard of FtF communication (e.g., Biocca et al., 2001; Hauber et al., 2005). In addition, researchers frequently hypothesize that increasing the salience of the mediated communication partner will naturally lead to more positive social outcomes (e.g., Fogg and Tseng, 1999; Hassanein and Head, 2007). While there is a wealth of research that supports this claim, this approach misleads researchers to neglect the fact that social presence may not always yield positive outcomes. This is an important issue to consider when designing communication systems; more social presence may not always be better (Allmendinger, 2010). Therefore, it is necessary to consider the characteristics of the communicator as well as the context in order to leverage the unique possibility of offering varying levels of social presence within virtual environments.

Attempts to increase social presence may lead to negative communication outcomes when the communicator is a person who feels discomfort during social interactions. Individuals who have high social anxiety or communication apprehension are generally uncomfortable in the presence of people. As such, these individuals prefer to withdraw from social situations and stay in the background, rather than engaging in the conversation (Allmendinger, 2010; Cortese and Seo, 2012). Consequently, they may feel more comfortable when the social presence of their communication partners is low, rather than when it is high. The fact that individuals who do not value or enjoy social interactions (e.g., shy, high communication apprehension, weaker need to belong, etc.) feel less social presence than their more social counterparts (Giannopoulos et al., 2008; Jin, 2010; Cortese and Seo, 2012; Kim et al., 2013a) offers some empirical evidence that socially withdrawn individuals may be less motivated to attend to social cues that enhance social presence. Directly germane to this hypothesis, studies (Joinson, 2004; Hertel et al., 2008; Hammick and Lee, 2014) consistently show that less socially oriented individuals prefer interacting through a medium that is considered to be “leaner” (e.g., text-based CMC), while more socially oriented individuals prefer to interact via a “richer” modality (e.g., FtF). Similarly, Poeschl (2017) found that perceiving the virtual audience to be more socially present tended to lead to a worse speech-giving performance.

The desirability of social presence may also differ depending on the interaction context. Studies suggest that higher levels of social presence are more beneficial in equivocal contexts wherein there is no “correct” outcome, such as negotiations (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Garau et al., 2003). In contrast, it is possible that people will prefer lower levels of social presence when they are feeling more vulnerable; the success of text-based counseling and support systems (Dinakar et al., 2015) lends some support to this conjecture. Taken together, these studies suggest that attempting to increase social presence may not have uniformly positive results; rather, special attention should be paid to the communication preferences and goals of the interactants.

In addition to individual traits, social presence may have differential communication outcomes depending on one's attitude toward his or her communication partner. That is, while increasing the salience of a neutral or likable communication partner may increase positive social outcomes, enhancing the social presence of a disliked communication partner might lead to less desirable results. As Lee and Shin (2012) argue, increased social presence of a disliked target can escalate the negative thoughts associated with him or her, which may in turn amplify prior attitudes toward the target. The fact that gamers felt more hostile and were more verbally aggressive toward their opponent when they experienced stronger levels of presence during a violent game (Nowak et al., 2008) offers some support to this hypothesis. Lee and Shin (2012) also found that while higher social presence of a high-profile politician led to stronger agreement with his opinions when participants liked him, this was not the case when participants did not have positive pre-dispositions toward him.

Considering these boundary conditions of the benefits of increased social presence, researchers should focus not only on the predictors of social presence, but also the interpersonal outcomes of enhanced social presence. Doing so will offer a more holistic view of social presence that will allow for a better understanding of when it is (and is not) desirable for a virtual environment to adopt immersive and contextual qualities that will increase social presence.

Limitations

There are several limitations in the current study. First the research that was reviewed often used different measures of social presence, which limits their comparability. It is thus important for researchers to note the different measures used (available in Table 2), to contextualize the findings of each study that was reviewed. We chose not to conduct a quantitative meta-analysis due to the variability of measures, as we believed this approach would lead to the exclusion of a number of important studies.

In addition, we did not assess the quality of each study that was included in this review; rather, we assumed that the findings of each study were true and correct. However, we included the publication outlet, number of citations, and the impact factor of the publication outlet (when available) in addition to the number of participants in Table 3. While these factors are not definitive criteria in determining the quality of a study, we hope that they will help readers better understand the nature of each study.

Another limitation of the present study is that we were unable to include concepts that share theoretical similarities with social presence. While this decision was made to achieve a higher level of internal validity, it led to the exclusion of research on important concepts, one of which is plausibility illusion (Slater, 2009; Slater et al., 2010). Plausibility illusion research significantly contributes to understanding when and how people respond to virtual others as “real” people, as it encapsulates the extent to which one feels as if the depicted events are actually occurring. In contrast to “the sense of being there” (i.e., place illusion), which tends to be contingent on the technological characteristics of the environment, Plausibility illusion concerns the credibility of a scenario, and thus is not dependent on the sensory capabilities of a virtual environment (Slater and Sanchez-Vives, 2016; Gonzalez-Franco and Peck, 2018). Although plausibility illusion is not identical to the concept of social presence (see Methods section), it can inform social presence researchers on why higher levels of immersion do not universally lead to higher levels of social presence. More importantly, plausibility illusion research can offer insight into when and how non-technological factors (e.g., mimicry, task type, etc.) influence the believability of the virtual human. In one study on bystander effects in a virtual bar, for example, participants reported contextual factors (e.g., appearance of bar, responsiveness of other characters, believability of dialogue with victim) as issues that brought them out of the virtual experience (“breaks in presence” Slater and Steed, 2000; Slater et al., 2013). Researchers have also explored the impact of the personality of the virtual human (Pan et al., 2015), level of coherence to the user's expectations (Skarbez et al., 2017), and the physicality of the virtual human (Chuah et al., 2013) on plausibility illusion.

Our study also did not explore the how the actual agency of the target influences social presence; while we did review studies that examined how agency affects social presence, they addressed perceived, rather than actual agency. While manipulating perceived agency does maximize internal validity, it reduces some of the external validity, given that avatars and agents are likely to behave differently outside of the laboratory. Although this is beyond the scope of the present study, we have included a column in Table 2 that notes whether or not the evaluation target in each study was an actual person or a computer algorithm.

Finally, the present study did not address potential moderators that could influence the impact of each feature on social presence. As we discussed above, both individual and contextual factors may moderate the findings of our systematic review. Future studies would benefit from exploring potential moderators and their relative effects.

Conclusion and future directions

Despite its potential drawbacks, social presence is a critical experience within networked environments. While increased social presence may not always lead to positive results, multiple studies show that the vivid perceptions of another person often lead to greater enjoyment and social influence in neutral and positive contexts (e.g., Fogg and Tseng, 1999; Hassanein and Head, 2007). Hence, a considerable amount of scholarly efforts have been made to identify factors that increase feelings of social presence, as we have found in the present paper. By reviewing these studies, we were able to identify immersive, contextual, and individual qualities that impact perceptions of social presence.

It is important to note, however, that due to the period during which they were conducted, many of these studies employed limited technology, and thus do not address the implications of recent technological advancements. For example, many VR systems now offer inverse kinematics, the prediction of joint movements based on the position(s) of a limited set of trackers. Considering the fact that both gesture and posture have a significant influence on person perception in FtF contexts (Riggio and Friedman, 1986), it is possible that this added layer of technology in CMC will impact experiences of social presence. However, this possibility has not been fully explored within the current social presence literature. Similarly, studies have also failed to explore the implications of rendering expressions that are driven by facial motion tracking data, another recent technological development. These research questions are important both from a theoretical and applied standpoint. From a theoretical point of view, these questions offer insight into the social cues that are necessary to induce feelings of a “social being,” or what it means for a virtual entity to “appear human.” In addition, these questions allow us to explore how immersive VR systems that support unprecedentedly high levels of behavioral realism influence social presence. From an applied point of view, this research will allow system designers to understand how to allocate resources when developing networking systems.

Future studies on social presence would also benefit from considering plausibility illusion research when formulating hypotheses. In addition, more empirical research is needed on the theoretical similarities and differences between social presence and plausibility illusion. For example, while there is evidence that the personality of the virtual human (e.g., friendliness, empathy, etc.) influences social presence, it is less probable that these features will influence plausibility illusion, or how believable they find the virtual human's behavior to be. Lending some support to this conjecture, Pan et al. (2015) found that the shyness of a virtual human did not influence perceptions of plausibility illusion. In contrast, it is reasonable to conjecture that behavioral realism will positively influence both social presence and plausibility illusion. This line of research can aid in creating a more cohesive theoretical framework for presence and its components, fostering fruitful intra- and inter-disciplinary discussions between VR researchers.

In addition, future studies should offer a more holistic view of social presence by considering the different dimensions that impact social presence. Just as studies found that increasing the behavioral realism of a virtual human that had low photographic realism did not lead to increased social presence (Garau et al., 2003), it would be beneficial to consider boundary conditions (e.g., contextual, individual) of the findings available in the current literature. One understudied, but important, boundary condition is the relationship between the conversation partners. Given that technological features such as audio delays differentially influence communication outcomes depending on the relationship between the partners (Koudenburg et al., 2014), this avenue of research may help researchers and practitioners understand how to design social VR systems when individuals are already acquainted with each other. Furthermore, considering that multiple studies reviewed in this paper show that increasing immersive qualities does not linearly increase social presence (e.g., Moreno and Mayer, 2004; Sallnäs, 2005; Homer et al., 2008), it would be critical to understand if, and if so when, there is a ceiling effect of immersion on social presence.

Lanier (2014) noted that a good VR system should be “good enough to fool you, to engage your whole body, to include others as avatars with you in there, to be usable in the long term, and giving you enough to do to outlast the first few demos” (p. xiii). However, he cautions that such high quality VR is still only available at a limited number of places. With the popularization of VR at the horizon, it is essential for both academic and industrial researchers to increase their understanding of what helps create the sense of being there with other people in this space of “consensual hallucination” (Gibson, 1984, p. 51).

Author contributions

CO, JB, and GW contributed to the conception and design of the study. CO organized and reviewed the database of social presence studies. CO wrote the first draft of the manuscript. CO, JB, and GW contributed to the manuscript revision, read and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge Florida Hospital for their support of GW via their Endowed Chair in Healthcare Simulation. We would also like to thank Ryan Burns, Jim Cummings, and Tobin Asher for their valuable input regarding this project.

Footnotes

Funding. This project was funded in part from an academic research gift from Google. We also acknowledge support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), code 30, under Dr. Peter Squire, Program Manager (ONR award N00014-17-1-2927) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant IIS-1800961.

References

  1. Ahn D., Seo Y., Kim M., Kwon J. H., Jung Y., Ahn J., et al. (2014). The effects of actual human size display and stereoscopic presentation on users' sense of being together with and of psychological immersion in a virtual character. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 17, 483–487. 10.1089/cyber.2013.0455 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Alge B. J., Wiethoff C., Klein H. J. (2003). When does the medium matter? Knowledge-building experiences and opportunities in decision-making teams. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Proces. 91, 26–37. 10.1016/S0749-5978(02)00524-1 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  3. Alghamdi M., Regenbrecht H., Hoermann S., Langlotz T., Aldridge C. (2016). Social presence and mode of videocommunication in a collaborative virtual environment, in Proceedings of the 20th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems. (Chiayi: AISeL; ). [Google Scholar]
  4. Allmendinger K. (2010). Social presence in synchronous virtual learning situations: the role of nonverbal signals displayed by avatars. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 22, 41–56. 10.1007/s10648-010-9117-8 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  5. Al-Natour S., Benbasat I., Cenfetelli R. (2011). The adoption of online shopping assistants: Perceived similarity as an antecedent to evaluative beliefs. J. Assoc. Inform. Syst. 12, 347–374. 10.17705/1jais.00267 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  6. Altman I., Taylor D. A. (1973). Social Penetration: The Development of Interpersonal Relationships. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. [Google Scholar]
  7. Antheunis M. L., Valkenburg P. M., Peter J. (2010). Getting acquainted through social network sites: testing a model of online uncertainty reduction and social attraction. Comput. Human Behav. 26, 100–109. 10.1016/j.chb.2009.07.005 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  8. Appel J., von der Pütten A., Krämer N. C., Gratch J. (2012). Does humanity matter? analyzing the importance of social cues and perceived agency of a computer system for the emergence of social reactions during human-computer interaction. Adv. Hum. Computer Inter. 13:324694 10.1155/2012/324694 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  9. Axelsson A. S., Abelin Å., Heldal I., Schroeder R., Wideström J. (2001). Cubes in the cube: a comparison of a puzzle-solving task in a virtual and a real environment. CyberPsychol. Behav. 4, 279–286. 10.1089/109493101300117956 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Aymerich-Franch L., Karutz C., Bailenson J. N. (2012). Effects of facial and voice similarity on presence in a public speaking virtual environment, in Proceedings of the International Society for Presence Research Annual Conference (Philadelphia, PA: ). [Google Scholar]
  11. Bailenson J. N., Blascovich J., Beall A. C., Loomis J. M. (2001). Equilibrium theory revisited: mutual gaze and personal space in virtual environments. Pres. Teleoperat.Virtu. Environ. 10, 583–598. 10.1162/105474601753272844 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  12. Bailenson J. N., Blascovich J., Beall A. C., Loomis J. M. (2003). Interpersonal distance in immersive virtual environments. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 29, 819–833. 10.1177/0146167203029007002 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Bailenson J. N., Swinth K. R., Hoyt C. L., Persky S., Dimov A., Blascovich J. (2005). The independent and interactive effects of embodied-agent appearance and behavior on self-report, cognitive, and behavioral markers of copresence in immersive virtual environments. Pres. Teleoperat.Virtu. Environ. 14, 379–393. 10.1162/105474605774785235 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  14. Bailenson J. N., Yee N. (2005). Digital chameleons automatic assimilation of nonverbal gestures in immersive virtual environments. Psychol. Sci. 16, 814–819. 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01619.x [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Bailenson J. N., Yee N., Merget D., Schroeder R. (2006). The effect of behavioral realism and form realism of real-time avatar faces on verbal disclosure, nonverbal disclosure, emotion recognition, and copresence in dyadic interaction. Pres. Teleoperat.Virtu. Environ. 15, 359–372. 10.1162/pres.15.4.359 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  16. Basdogan C., Ho C. H., Srinivasan M. A., Slater M. (2000). An experimental study on the role of touch in shared virtual environments. ACM Trans. Comp, Hum. Interact., 7, 443–460. 10.1145/365058.365082 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  17. Bente G., Eschenburg F., Aelker L. (2007). Effects of simulated gaze on social presence, person perception and personality attribution in avatar-mediated communication, in Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Workshop on Presence (Barcelona: ). [Google Scholar]
  18. Bente G., Rüggenberg S., Krämer N. C., Eschenburg F. (2008). Avatar-mediated networking: increasing social presence and interpersonal trust in net-based collaborations. Hum. Commun. Res. 34, 287–318. 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2008.00322.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  19. Biocca F. (1997). The cyborg's dilemma: progressive embodiment in virtual environments. J. Comp. Mediated Commun. 3:JCMC324 10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00070.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  20. Biocca F., Harms C. (2002). Defining and measuring social presence: Contribution to the networked minds theory and measure, in Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Workshop on Presence (Porto: ). [Google Scholar]
  21. Biocca F., Harms C., Burgoon J. K. (2003). Toward a more robust theory and measure of social presence: review and suggested criteria. Pres. Teleoperat.Virtu. Environ. 12, 456–480. 10.1162/105474603322761270 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  22. Biocca F., Harms C., Gregg J. (2001). The networked minds measure of social presence: pilot test of the factor structure and concurrent validity, in Proceedings of the 4th Annual International Workshop on Presence (Philadelphia, PA: ). [Google Scholar]
  23. Biocca F., Levy M. R. (eds.). (2013). Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality. London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]
  24. Blascovich J., Loomis J., Beall A. C., Swinth K. R., Hoyt C. L., Bailenson J. N. (2002). Immersive virtual environment technology as a methodological tool for social psychology. Psychol. Inq. 13, 103–124. 10.1207/S15327965PLI1302_01 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  25. Borgers N., Sikkel D., Hox J. (2004). Response effects in surveys on children and adolescents: The effect of number of response options, negative wording, and neutral mid-point. Quality Quantity 38, 17–33. 10.1023/B:QUQU.0000013236.29205.a6 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  26. Bouchard S., Bernier F., Boivin E., Dumoulin S., Laforest M., Guitard T, et al. (2013). Empathy toward virtual humans depicting a known or unknown person expressing pain. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 16, 61–71. 10.1089/cyber.2012.1571 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Bracken C. C. (2005). Presence and image quality: the case of high-definition television. Media Psychol. 7, 191–205. 10.1207/S1532785XMEP0702_4 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  28. Casanueva J. S., Blake E. H. (2001). The effects of avatars on co-presence in a collaborative virtual environment,in Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists (SAICSIT2001) (Pretoria: ). [Google Scholar]
  29. Chellali A., Dumas C., Milleville-Pennel I. (2011). Influences of haptic communication on a shared manual task. Interact. Comput. 23, 317–328. 10.1016/j.intcom.2011.05.002 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  30. Cho Y. H., Yim S. Y., Paik S. (2015). Physical and social presence in 3D virtual role-play for pre-service teachers. Internet Higher Educ. 25, 70–77. 10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.01.002 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  31. Choi J. J., Kwak S. S. (2017). Who is this? identity and presence in robot-mediated communication. Cogn. Syst. Res. 43, 174–189. 10.1016/j.cogsys.2016.07.006 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  32. Choi Y. K., Miracle G. E., Biocca F. (2001). The effects of anthropomorphic agents on advertising effectiveness and the mediating role of presence. J. Interact. Advert. 2, 19–32. 10.1080/15252019.2001.10722055 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  33. Christie B. (1974). Perceived usefulness of person-person telecommunications media as a function of the intended application. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 4, 366–368. 10.1002/ejsp.2420040307 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  34. Chuah J. H., Robb A., White C., Wendling A., Lampotang S., Kopper R., et al. (2013). Exploring agent physicality and social presence for medical team training. Pre. Teleoperat. Virtual Environ. 22, 141–170. 10.1162/PRES_a_00145 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  35. Clayes E. L., Anderson A. H. (2007). Real faces and robot faces: the effects of representation on computer-mediated communication. Int. J. Hum. Comp. Studies, 65, 480–496. 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2006.10.005 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  36. Cortese J., Seo M. (2012). The role of social presence in opinion expression during FtF and CMC discussions. Commun. Res. Rep. 29, 44–53. 10.1080/08824096.2011.639913 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  37. Croes E. A., Antheunis M. L., Schouten A. P., Krahmer E. J. (2016). Teasing apart the effect of visibility and physical co-presence to examine the effect of CMC on interpersonal attraction. Comput. Human Behav. 55, 468–476. 10.1016/j.chb.2015.09.037 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  38. Cuddetta M., Francescato D., Porcelli R., Renzi P. (2003). Scala di Presenza Sociale. Unpublished scale. Department of Psychology, University of Rome La Sapienza. Rome. [Google Scholar]
  39. Cummings J. J., Bailenson J. N. (2016). How immersive is enough? a meta-analysis of the effect of immersive technology on user presence. Media Psychol. 19, 272–309. 10.1080/15213269.2015.1015740 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  40. Cummings J. J., Bailenson J. N., Fidler M. J. (2012). How immersive is enough? A foundation for a meta-analysis of the effect of immersive technology on measured presence, in Proceedings of the International Society for Presence Research Annual Conference (Philadelphia, PA: ). [Google Scholar]
  41. Cummings J. J., Wertz B. (2018). Technological predictors of social presence: A foundation for a meta-analytic review and empirical concept explication, in Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Workshop on Presence (Prague: ). [Google Scholar]
  42. Daft R. L., Lengel R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Manage. Sci. 32, 554–571. 10.1287/mnsc.32.5.554 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  43. Daher S., Kim K., Lee M., Raij A., Schubert R., Bailenson J., et al. (2016). Exploring social presence transfer in real-virtual human interaction, in Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality (Greenville, SC: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  44. Dalzel-Job S. (2014). Social Interaction in Virtual Environments: the Relationship Between Mutual Gaze, Task Performance And Social Presence. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
  45. de Greef H. P. (2014). Video communication best for female friends? in Proceedings of the International Society for Presence Research Annual Conference (Vienna: ). [Google Scholar]
  46. de Greef H. P., Ijsselsteijn W. A. (2001). Social presence in a home tele-application. CyberPsychol. Behav. 4, 307–315. 10.1089/109493101300117974 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  47. DeSchryver M., Mishra P., Koehleer M., Francis A. (2009). Moodle vs. Facebook: Does using Facebook for discussions in an online course enhance perceived social presence and student interaction? in Proceedings of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education; ), 329–336. [Google Scholar]
  48. Dicke C., Aaltonen V., Räm,ö A., Vilermo M. (2010). Talk to me: The influence of audio quality on the perception of social presence, in Proceedings of the 24th BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference (Swindon: BCS Learning & Development; ). [Google Scholar]
  49. Dinakar K., Chen J., Lieberman H., Picard R., Filbin R. (2015). Mixed-initiative real-time topic modeling & visualization for crisis counseling, March 29-April 1, in Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (New York, NY: ACM; ). [Google Scholar]
  50. Felnhofer A., Kafka J. X., Hlavacs H., Beutl L., Kryspin-Exner I., Kothgassner O. D. (2018). Meeting others virtually in a day-to-day setting: investigating social avoidance and prosocial behavior towards avatars and agents. Comp. Hum. Behav. 80, 399–406. 10.1016/j.chb.2017.11.031 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  51. Felnhofer A., Kothgassner O. D., Hauk N., Beutl L., Hlavacs H., Kryspin-Exner I. (2014). Physical and social presence in collaborative virtual environments: exploring age and gender differences with respect to empathy. Comput. Hum. Behav. 31, 272–279. 10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.045 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  52. Feng B., Li S., Li N. (2016). Is a profile worth a thousand words? How online support-seeker's profile features may influence the quality of received support messages. Commun. Res. 43, 253–276. 10.1177/0093650213510942 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  53. Festinger L. (1962). Cognitive dissonance. Sci. Am. 207, 93–106. 10.1038/scientificamerican1062-93 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  54. Fogg B. J., Tseng H. (1999). The elements of computer credibility, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (New York, NY: ACM; ). [Google Scholar]
  55. Fortin D. R., Dholakia R. R. (2005). Interactivity and vividness effects on social presence and involvement with a web-based advertisement. J. Bus. Res. 58, 387–396. 10.1016/S0148-2963(03)00106-1 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  56. Fox J., Ahn S. J., Janssen J. H., Yeykelis L., Segovia K. Y., Bailenson J. N. (2015). Avatars versus agents: a meta-analysis quantifying the effect of agency on social influence. Hum. Comp. Inter. 30, 401–432. 10.1080/07370024.2014.921494 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  57. Francescato D., Porcelli R., Mebane M., Cuddetta M., Klobas J., Renzi P. (2006). Evaluation of the efficacy of collaborative learning in face-to-face and computer-supported university contexts. Comput. Hum. Behav. 22, 163–176. 10.1016/j.chb.2005.03.001 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  58. Friedman D., Brogni A., Guger C., Antley A., Steed A., Slater M. (2006). Sharing and analyzing data from presence experiments. Pre. Teleoper. Virtual Environ. 15, 599–610. 10.1162/pres.15.5.599 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  59. Gajadhar B. J., De Kort Y. A., Ijsselsteijn W. A. (2008). Shared fun is doubled fun: player enjoyment as a function of social setting, in Fun and Games (Berlin: Springer; ), 106–117. [Google Scholar]
  60. Garau M., Slater M., Bee S., Sasse M. A. (2001). The impact of eye gaze on communication using humanoid avatars, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Seattle, WA: ). [Google Scholar]
  61. Garau M., Slater M., Pertaub D. P., Razzaque S. (2005). The responses of people to virtual humans in an immersive virtual environment. Pre. Teleoperat. Virtual Environ. 14, 104–116. 10.1162/1054746053890242 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  62. Garau M., Slater M., Vinayagamoorthy V., Brogni A., Steed A., Sasse M. A. (2003). The impact of avatar realism and eye gaze control on perceived quality of communication in a shared immersive virtual environment, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (New York, NY: ACM; ). [Google Scholar]
  63. Gefen D., Straub D. (2003). Managing user trust in B2C e-services. e-Service 2, 7–24. 10.2979/esj.2003.2.2.7 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  64. Gerhard M., Moore D., Hobbs D. (2001). Continuous presence in collaborative virtual environments: Towards the evaluation of a hybrid avatar-agent model for user representation, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (Madrid: ). [Google Scholar]
  65. Giannopoulos E., Eslava V., Oyarzabal M., Hierro T., González L., Ferre M., et al. (2008). The effect of haptic feedback on basic social interaction within shared virtual environments, in Haptics: Perception, Devices and Scenarios. (Berlin: Springer; ). [Google Scholar]
  66. Gibson W. (1984). Neuromancer. New York, NY: Ace Science Fiction Books. [Google Scholar]
  67. Gimpel H., Huber J., Sarikaya S. (2016). Customer satisfaction in digital service encounters: The role of media richness, social presence, and cultural distance, in Proceedings of the 24th European Conference on Information Systems (Istanbul: ). [Google Scholar]
  68. Gong L. (2008). How social is social responses to computers? the function of the degree of anthropomorphism in computer representations. Comp. Hum. Behav. 24, 1494–1509. 10.1016/j.chb.2007.05.007 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  69. Gong L., Appiah O., Elias T. (2007). See minorities through the lens of ethnic identity: Reflected unto racial representations of real humans and virtual humans, in 93rd Annual Convention of the National Communication Association (Chicago, IL: ). [Google Scholar]
  70. Gonzalez-Franco M. G. F., Peck T. C. (2018). Avatar embodiment. Towards a standardized questionnaire. Front. Robotics AI 5:74 10.3389/frobt.2018.00074 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  71. Guadagno R. E., Blascovich J., Bailenson J. N., Mccall C. (2007). Virtual humans and persuasion: the effects of agency and behavioral realism. Media Psychol. 10, 1–22. 10.108/15213260701300865 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  72. Guadagno R. E., Swinth K. R., Blascovich J. (2011). Social evaluations of embodied agents and avatars. Comp. Hum. Beh. 27, 2380–2385. 10.1016/j.chb.2011.07.017 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  73. Gunawardena C. N. (1995). Social presence theory and implications for interaction and collaborative learning in computer conferences. Int. J. Educ. Telecommun. 1, 147–166. Available online at: https://www.learntechlib.org/p/15156/ [Google Scholar]
  74. Gunawardena C. N., Zittle F. J. (1997). Social presence as a predictor of satisfaction within a computer-mediated conferencing environment. Am. J. Dist. Edu. 11, 8–26. 10.1080/08923649709526970 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  75. Hammick J. K., Lee M. J. (2014). Do shy people feel less communication apprehension online? the effects of virtual reality on the relationship between personality characteristics and communication outcomes. Comput. Human Behav. 33, 302–310. 10.1016/j.chb.2013.01.046 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  76. Han S., Min J., Lee H. (2016). Building relationships within corporate SNS accounts through social presence formation. Int. J. Inform. Manag. 36, 945–962. 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2016.06.004 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  77. Harms C., Biocca F. (2004). Internal consistency and reliability of the networked minds social presence measure, in Proceedings of the 7th Annual International Workshop on Presence (Valencia: ). [Google Scholar]
  78. Harris H., Bailenson J. N., Nielsen A., Yee N. (2009). The evolution of social behavior over time in second life. Pres. Teleoperat.Virtu. Environ. 18, 434–448. 10.1162/pres.18.6.434 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  79. Hassanein K., Head M. (2007). Manipulating perceived social presence through the web interface and its impact on attitude towards online shopping. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 65, 689–708. 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2006.11.018 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  80. Hatta T., Ken-ichi O. (2008). Effects of visual cue and spatial distance on exitability in electronic negotiation. Comp. Hum. Behav. 24, 1542–1551. 10.1016/j.chb.2007.05.008 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  81. Hauber J., Regenbrecht H., Billinghurst M., Cockburn A. (2006). Spatiality in videoconferencing: trade-offs between efficiency and social presence, in Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (New York, NY: ACM; ). [Google Scholar]
  82. Hauber J., Regenbrecht H., Cockburn A., Billinghurst M. (2012). The impact of collaborative style on the perception of 2D and 3D videoconferencing interfaces. Open Software Eng. J. 6, 1–20. 10.2174/1874107X01206010001 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  83. Hauber J., Regenbrecht H., Hills A., Cockburn A., Billinghurst M. (2005). Social presence in two-and three-dimensional videoconferencing, in Proceedings of 8th Annual International Workshop on Presence. (London: ). [Google Scholar]
  84. Hayes A. (2015). The Experience of Physical and Social Presence in a Virtual Learning Environment as Impacted by the Affordance of Movement Enabled by Motion Tracking. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Central Florida, USA.
  85. Heidicker P., Langbehn E., Steinicke F. (2017). Influence of avatar appearance on presence in social VR, in Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces. (Los Angeles, CA: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  86. Heldal I., Schroeder R., Steed A., Axelsson A. S., Spant M., Wideström J. (2005). Immersiveness and symmetry in copresent scenarios, in Proceedings of IEEE VR (New York, NY: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  87. Herrewijn L., Poels K. (2015). The impact of social setting on the recall and recognition of in-game advertising. Comput. Human Behav. 53, 544–555. 10.1016/j.chb.2014.06.012 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  88. Hertel G., Schroer J., Batinic B., Naumann S. (2008). Do shy people prefer to send e-mail? Personality effects on communication media preferences in threatening and nonthreatening situations. Soc. Psychol. 39, 231–243. 10.1027/1864-9335.39.4.231 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  89. Hills A. (2005). Social Presence and Communication Quality in Videoconferencing. Unpublished bachelor dissertation, University of Otago, New Zealand.
  90. Hills A., Hauber J., Regenbrecht H. (2005). Videos in space: a study on presence in video mediating communication systems, in Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Augmented Tele-Existence (New York, NY: ACM; ). [Google Scholar]
  91. Homer B. D., Plass J. L., Blake L. (2008). The effects of video on cognitive load and social presence in multimedia-learning. Comput. Human Behav. 24, 786–797. 10.1016/j.chb.2007.02.009 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  92. Horvath K., Lombard M. (2010). Social and spatial presence: an application to optimize human-computer interaction. PsychNol. J. 8, 85–114. Available online at: http://www.psychnology.org/File/PNJ8(1)/PSYCHNOLOGY_JOURNAL_8_1_HORVATH.pdf [Google Scholar]
  93. Hostetter C., Busch M. (2006). Measuring up online: the relationship between social presence and student learning satisfaction. J. Scholarsh. Teach. Learn. 6, 1–12. Available online at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ854921.pdf [Google Scholar]
  94. Hoyt C. L., Blascovich J., Swinth K. R. (2003). Social inhibition in immersive virtual environments. Pres. Teleoperat.Virtu. Environ. 12, 183–195. 10.1162/105474603321640932 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  95. IJsselsteijn W., Van Den Hoogen W., Klimmt C., De Kort Y., Lindley C., Mathiak K., et al. (2008). Measuring the experience of digital game enjoyment, in Proceedings of Measuring Behavior (Wageningen: ). [Google Scholar]
  96. James C. A., Haustein K., Bednarz T. P., Alem L., Caris C., Castleden A. (2011). Remote operation of mining equipment using panoramic display systems: Exploring the sense of presence. Ergonom. Open J. 4, 93–102. 10.2174/1875934301104010093 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  97. Järvelä S., Kätsyri J., Ravaja N., Chanel G., Henttonen P. (2016). Intragroup emotions: physiological linkage and social presence. Front. Psychol. 7:105. 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00105 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  98. Jin S. A. A. (2009). Modality effects in second life: the mediating role of social presence and the moderating role of product involvement. CyberPsychol. Behav. 12, 717–721. 10.1089/cpb.2008.0273 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  99. Jin S. A. A. (2010). Parasocial interaction with an avatar in second life: a typology of the self and an empirical test of the mediating role of social presence. Pres. Teleoperat.Virtu. Environ. 19, 331–340. 10.1162/PRES_a_00001 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  100. Jin S. A. A. (2011). “I feel present. Therefore, I experience flow”: a structural equation modeling approach to flow and presence in video games. J. Broadcast. Electronic Media. 55, 114–136. 10.1080/08838151.2011.546248 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  101. Jin S. A. A. (2012). The virtual malleable self and the virtual identity discrepancy model: investigative frameworks for virtual possible selves and others in avatar-based identity construction and social interaction. Comput. Human Behav. 28, 2160–2168. 10.1016/j.chb.2012.06.022 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  102. Johnsen K., Lok B. (2008). An evaluation of immersive displays for virtual human experiences, in Proceedings of IEEE VR(New York, NY: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  103. Johnson D. M., Stewart J. E. (1999). Use of virtual environments for the acquisition of spatial knowledge: Comparison among different visual displays. Military Psychol. 11:129 10.1207/s15327876mp1102_1 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  104. Johnson R. D. (2011). Gender differences in e-learning: communication, social presence, and learning outcomes. J. Organ. End User Comput. 23, 79–94. 10.4018/joeuc.2011010105 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  105. Joinson A. N. (2004). Self-esteem, interpersonal risk, and preference for e-mail to face-to-face communication. CyberPsychol. Behav. 7, 472–478. 10.1089/cpb.2004.7.472 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  106. Jordan J., Mortensen J., Oliveira M., Slater M., Tay B. K., Kim J., et al. (2002). Collaboration in a mediated haptic environment, in Proceedings of the 5th Annual International Workshop on Presence. (Porto: ). [Google Scholar]
  107. Jung S., Roh S., Yang H., Biocca F. (2017). Location and modality effects in online dating: rich modality profile and location-based information cues increase social presence, while moderating the impact of uncertainty reduction strategy. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 20, 553–560. 10.1089/cyber.2017.0027 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  108. Kang S. H., Gratch J. (2014). Exploring users' social responses to computer counseling interviewers' behavior. Comput. Human Behav. 34, 120–130. 10.1016/j.chb.2014.01.006 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  109. Kang S. H., Watt J. H. (2013). The impact of avatar realism and anonymity on effective communication via mobile devices. Comp. Hum. Behav. 29, 1169–1181. 10.1016/j.chb.2012.10.010 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  110. Kang S. H., Watt J. H., Ala S. K. (2008). Communicators' perceptions of social presence as a function of avatar realism in small display mobile communication devices, in Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (New York, NY: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  111. Kim D., Frank M. G., Kim S. T. (2014). Emotional display behavior in different forms of computer mediated communication. Comput. Human Behav. 30, 222–229. 10.1016/j.chb.2013.09.001 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  112. Kim H., Suh K. S., Lee U. K. (2013b). Effects of collaborative online shopping on shopping experience through social and relational perspectives. Inform. Manag. 50, 169–180. 10.1016/j.im.2013.02.003 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  113. Kim H. S., Sundar S. S. (2014). Can online buddies and bandwagon cues enhance user participation in online health communities? Comput. Hum. Behav. 37, 319–333. 10.1016/j.chb.2014.04.039 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  114. Kim J., Kim H., Tay B. K., Muniyandi M., Srinivasan M. A., Jordan J., et al. (2004). Transatlantic touch: a study of haptic collaboration over long distance. Pres. Teleoperat.Virtu. Environ. 13, 328–337. 10.1162/1054746041422370 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  115. Kim J., Timmerman C. E. (2018). Effects of supportive feedback messages on exergame experiences: a mediating role of social presence. J. Media Psychol. 30, 29–40. 10.1027/1864-1105/a000175 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  116. Kim K., Bolton J., Girouard A., Cooperstock J., Vertegaal R. (2012). TeleHuman: effects of 3d perspective on gaze and pose estimation with a life-size cylindrical telepresence pod, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Austin, TX: ACM. [Google Scholar]
  117. Kim K., Bruder G., Maloney D., Welch G. (2016). The influence of real human personality on social presence with a virtual human in augmented reality, in Proceedings of the Combined International Conference on Artificial Reality & Telexistence and Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments (ICAT-EGVE), (Aire-la-Ville: Eurographics Association; ). [Google Scholar]
  118. Kim K., Maloney D., Bruder G., Bailenson J. N., Welch G. F. (2017). The effects of virtual human's spatial and behavioral coherence with physical objects on social presence in AR. Comput. Anim. Virtual Worlds 28:e1771 10.1002/cav.1771 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  119. Kim K. J. (2016). Interacting socially with the Internet of Things (IoT): effects of source attribution and specialization in human–IoT interaction. J. Comp. Mediat. Commun. 21, 420–435. 10.1111/jcc4.12177 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  120. Kim K. J., Park E., Sundar S. S. (2013a). Caregiving role in human–robot interaction: a study of the mediating effects of perceived benefit and social presence. Comput. Human Behav. 29, 1799–1806. 10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.009 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  121. Kim T., Biocca F. (1997). Telepresence via television: two dimensions of telepresence may have different connections to memory and persuasion. J. Comput. Mediat. Commun. 3:JCMC325 10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00073.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  122. Kim Y., Sundar S. S. (2012). Anthropomorphism of computers: Is it mindful or mindless? Comput. Human Behav. 28, 241–250. 10.1016/j.chb.2011.09.006 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  123. Kothgassner O. D., Griesinger M., Kettner K., Wayan K., Völkl-Kernstock S., Hlavacs H., et al. (2017). Real-life prosocial behavior decreases after being socially excluded by avatars, not agents. Comput. Human Behav. 70, 261–269. 10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.059 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  124. Kothgassner O. D., Kafka J. X., Rudyk J., Beutl L., Hlavacs H., Felnhofer A. (2014). Does social exclusion hurt virtually like it hurts in real-life? the role of agency and social presence in the perception and experience of social exclusion, in Proceedings of the International Society for Presence Research Annual Conference (Vienna: ). [Google Scholar]
  125. Koudenburg N., Gordijn E. H., Postmes T. (2014). More than words”: social validation in close relationships. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 40, 1517–1528. 10.1177/0146167214549945 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  126. Kumar N., Benbasat I. (2002). “Para-social presence: a re-conceptualization of “social presence” to capture the relationship between a web site and her visitors, in Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (Big Island, HI: ). [Google Scholar]
  127. Lanier J. (2014). “Perspective of Jaron Lanier,” in Handbook of Virtual Environments, eds Hale K., Stanney K. M. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press; ), xiii–xvii [Google Scholar]
  128. Lanier J. (2017). Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters With Reality And Virtual Reality. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company. [Google Scholar]
  129. Lee E. J. (2013). Effectiveness of politicians' soft campaign on Twitter versus TV: cognitive and experiential routes. J. Commun. 63, 953–974. 10.1111/jcom.12049 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  130. Lee E. J., Jang J. W. (2013). Not so imaginary interpersonal contact with public figures on social network sites: how affiliative tendency moderates its effects. Commun. Res. 40, 27–51. 10.1177/0093650211431579 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  131. Lee E. J., Oh S. Y. (2012). To personalize or depersonalize? when and how politicians' personalized tweets affect the public's reactions. J. Commun. 62, 932–949. 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01681.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  132. Lee E. J., Shin S. Y. (2012). Are they talking to me? Cognitive and affective effects of interactivity in politicians' Twitter communication. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Network. 15, 515–520. 10.1089/cyber.2012.0228 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  133. Lee E. J., Shin S. Y. (2014). When the medium is the message how transportability moderates the effects of politicians' Twitter communication. Commu. Res. 41, 1088–1110. 10.1177/0093650212466407 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  134. Lee K. M. (2004). Presence, explicated. Commun. Theory 14, 27–50. 10.1111/j.1468-2885.2004.tb00302.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  135. Lee K. M., Jeong E. J., Park N., Ryu S. (2007). Effects of networked interactivity in educational games: Mediating effects of social presence, in Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Workshop on Presence (Barcelona: ). [Google Scholar]
  136. Lee K. M., Jeong E. J., Park N., Ryu S. (2011). Effects of interactivity in educational games: A mediating role of social presence on learning outcomes. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact. 27, 620–633. 10.1080/10447318.2011.555302 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  137. Lee K. M., Jung Y., Kim J., Kim S. R. (2006a). Are physically embodied social agents better than disembodied social agents? The effects of physical embodiment, tactile interaction, and people's loneliness in human–robot interaction. Int. J. Hum. Comp. Studies 64, 962–973. 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2006.05.002 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  138. Lee K. M., Nass C. (2004). The multiple source effect and synthesized speech. Hum. Commun. Res. 30, 182–207. 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2004.tb00730.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  139. Lee K. M., Nass C. (2005). Social-psychological origins of feelings of presence: Creating social presence with machine-generated voices. Media Psychol. 7, 31–45. 10.1207/S1532785XMEP0701_2 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  140. Lee K. M., Park N., Song H. (2005). Can a robot be perceived as a developing creature? effects of a robot's long-term cognitive developments on its social presence and people's social responses toward it. Hum. Commun. Res. 31, 538–563. 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2005.tb00882.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  141. Lee K. M., Peng W., Jin S. A., Yan C. (2006b). Can robots manifest personality? an empirical test of personality recognition, social responses, and social presence in human–robot interaction. J. Commun. 56, 754–772. 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00318.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  142. Lee M., Bruder G., Welch G. F. (2017). Exploring the effect of vibrotactile feedback through the floor on social presence in an immersive virtual environment, in Proceedings of IEEE VR (New York, NY: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  143. Lee M., Kim K., Daher S., Raij A., Schubert R., Bailenson J., et al. (2016). The wobbly table: increased social presence via subtle incidental movement of a real-virtual table, in Proceedings of IEEE VR (New York, NY: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  144. Lee Y. H., Xiao M., Wells R. H. (2018). The effects of avatars' age on older adults' self-disclosure and trust. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 21, 173–178. 10.1089/cyber.2017.0451 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  145. Li J., Kizilcec R., Bailenson J., Ju W. (2016). Social robots and virtual agents as lecturers for video instruction. Comput. Human Behav. 55, 1222–1230. 10.1016/j.chb.2015.04.005 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  146. Li S., Feng B., Li N., Tan X. (2015). How social context cues in online support-seeking influence self-disclosure in support provision. Commun. Q. 63, 586–602. 10.1080/01463373.2015.1078389 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  147. Lim J., Richardson J. C. (2016). Exploring the effects of students' social networking experience on social presence and perceptions of using SNSs for educational purposes. Intern. High. Educ. 29, 31–39. 10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.12.001 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  148. Lim S., Reeves B. (2010). Computer agents versus avatars: Responses to interactive game characters controlled by a computer or other player. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 68, 57–68. 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2009.09.008 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  149. Lim Y. S., Lee-Won R. J. (2017). When retweets persuade: the persuasive effects of dialogic retweeting and the role of social presence in organizations' Twitter-based communication. Telemat. Informat. 34, 422–433. 10.1016/j.tele.2016.09.003 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  150. Lombard M. (1995). Direct responses to people on the screen: television and personal space. Commun. Res. 22, 288–324. 10.1177/009365095022003002 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  151. Lombard M., Ditton T. (1997). At the heart of it all: The concept of presence. J. Comp. Mediat. Commun. 3. [Google Scholar]
  152. Lombard M., Ditton T. B., Crane D., Davis B., Gil-Egui G., Horvath K., et al. (2000). Measuring presence: a literature-based approach to the development of a standardized paper-and-pencil instrument, in Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Presence (Delft: ). [Google Scholar]
  153. Lombard M., Ditton T. B., Weinstein L. (2009). Measuring (tele)presence: the Temple Presence Inventory, in Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Presence (Los Angeles, CA: ). [Google Scholar]
  154. Lowden R. J., Hostetter C. (2012). Access, utility, imperfection: The impact of videoconferencing on perceptions of social presence. Comput. Human Behav. 28, 377–383. 10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.007 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  155. McGregor S. C. (2018). Personalization, social media, and voting: effects of candidate self-personalization on vote intention. New Media Soc. 20, 1139–1160. 10.1177/1461444816686103 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  156. Mennecke B. E., Wheeler B. C. (1993). Tasks matter: modeling group task processes in experimental CSCW research, in Proceedings of the 26th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (New York, NY: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  157. Meyer H. K., Lohner J. (2012). Media equation revisited: does a reporter's presence matter in online video? in 68th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (Phoenix, AZ: ). [Google Scholar]
  158. Moreno R., Mayer R. E. (2004). Personalized messages that promote science learning in virtual environments. J. Educ. Psychol. 96, 165–173. 10.1037/0022-0663.96.1.165 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  159. Mühlbach L., Bocker M., Prussog A. (1995). Telepresence in videocommunications: a study on stereoscopy and individual eye contact. J. Hum. Factors Ergonom. Soc. 37, 290–305. 10.1518/001872095779064582 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  160. Nakanishi H., Murakami Y., Nogami D., Ishiguro H. (2008). Minimum movement matters: Impact of robot-mounted cameras on social telepresence, in Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (San Diego, CA: ). [Google Scholar]
  161. Nam C. S., Shu J., Chung D. (2008). The roles of sensory modalities in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). Comput. Human Behav. 24, 1404–1417. 10.1016/j.chb.2007.07.014 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  162. Nass C., Steuer J., Tauber E. R. (1994). Computers are social actors, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in Computing Systems (New York, NY: ACM; ). [Google Scholar]
  163. Nowak K. L. (2001). Defining and differentiating copresence, social presence and presence as transportation, in Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Presence (Philadelphia, PA: ). [Google Scholar]
  164. Nowak K. L. (2003). Sex categorization in computer mediated communication (CMC): exploring the utopian promise. Media Psychol. 5, 83–103. 10.1207/S1532785XMEP0501_4 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  165. Nowak K. L., Biocca F. (2003). The effect of the agency and anthropomorphism on users' sense of telepresence, copresence, and social presence in virtual environments. Pres. Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 12, 481–494. 10.1162/105474603322761289 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  166. Nowak K. L., Krcmar M., Farrar K. M. (2008). The causes and consequences of presence: considering the influence of violent video games on presence and aggression. Pres. Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 17, 256–268. 10.1162/pres.17.3.256 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  167. Nowak K. L., Watt J., Walther J. B. (2009). Computer mediated teamwork and the efficiency framework: exploring the influence of synchrony and cues on media satisfaction and outcome success. Comput. Human Behav. 25, 1108–1119. 10.1016/j.chb.2009.05.006 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  168. Oh S. Y., Bailenson J., Krämer N., Li B. (2016). Let the avatar brighten your smile: effects of enhancing facial expressions in virtual environments. PLoS ONE 11:161794. 10.1371/journal.pone.0161794 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  169. Pan X., Gillies M., Slater M. (2008). The impact of avatar blushing on the duration of interaction between a real and virtual person, in Proceedings of the 11th Annual International Workshop on Presence October 26–28 (Edinburgh: ). [Google Scholar]
  170. Pan X., Gillies M., Slater M. (2015). Virtual character personality influences participant attitudes and behavior–an interview with a virtual human character about her social anxiety. Front. Robot. AI 2:1 10.3389/frobt.2015.00001 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  171. Park E. K., Sundar S. S. (2015). Can synchronicity and visual modality enhance social presence in mobile messaging? Comput. Human Behav. 45, 121–128. 10.1016/j.chb.2014.12.001 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  172. Peña J., Ghaznavi J., Brody N., Prada R., Martinho C., Santos P. A., et al. (2017). Effects of human vs. computer-controlled characters and social identity cues on enjoyment: mediation effects of presence, similarity, and group identification. J. Media Psychol. 10.1027/1864-1105/a000218 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  173. Phillips B., Lee W. N. (2005). Interactive animation: exploring spokes-characters on the Internet. J. Curr. Issues Res. Advert. 27, 1–17. 10.1080/10641734.2005.10505170 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  174. Poeschl S. (2017). Virtual reality training for public speaking—a QUEST-VR framework validation. Front. ICT 4:13 10.3389/fict.2017.00013 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  175. Qin J., Choi K. S., Xu R., Pang W. M., Heng P. A. (2013). Effect of packet loss on collaborative haptic interactions in networked virtual environments: an experimental study. Pre. Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 22, 36–53. 10.1162/PRES_a_00132 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  176. Qiu L., Benbasat I. (2005). Online consumer trust and live help interfaces: the effects of text-to-speech voice and three-dimensional avatars. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact. 19, 75–94. 10.1207/s15327590ijhc1901_6 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  177. Qiu L., Benbasat I. (2010). A study of demographic embodiments of product recommendation agents in electronic commerce. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 68, 669–688. 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2010.05.005 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  178. Ramirez A., Walther J. B., Burgoon J. K., Sunnafrank M. (2002). Information-seeking strategies, uncertainty, and computer-mediated communication. Hum. Commun. Res. 28, 213–228. 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2002.tb00804.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  179. Ratan R. A., Hasler B. (2009). Self-presence standardized: Introducing the self-presence questionnaire (SPQ), in Proceedings of the 12th Annual International Workshop on Presence (Los Angeles, CA: ). [Google Scholar]
  180. Rauh C., Renfro S. (2004). Feedback delay effects in video monitor communication, Paper presented at: 54th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (New Orleans, LA: ). [Google Scholar]
  181. Rauwers F., Voorveld H. A., Neijens P. C. (2016). The effects of the integration of external and internal communication features in digital magazines on consumers' magazine attitude. Comput. Hum. Behav. 61, 454–462. 10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.042 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  182. Reeves B., Nass C. (1996). The Media Equation. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. [Google Scholar]
  183. Richardson J. C., Swan K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to students' perceived learning and satisfaction. J. Asynchron. Learn. Netw. 7, 68–88. Available online at: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/18713 [Google Scholar]
  184. Riggio R. E., Friedman H. S. (1986). Impression formation: The role of expressive behavior. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 50, 421–427. 10.1037/0022-3514.50.2.421 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  185. Robb A., Kleinsmith A., Cordar A., White C., Wendling A., Lampotang S., et al. (2016). Training together: how another human trainee's presence affects behavior during virtual human-based team training. Front. ICT 3:17 10.3389/fict.2016.00017 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  186. Rüggenberg S. (2007). So Nah und Doch So Fern. Soziale Präsenz und Vertrauen in der Computervermittelten Kommunikation (So Close and Yet So Far Away: Social Presences and Trust in Computer-Mediated Communication). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Cologne, Cologne.
  187. Sallnäs E. L. (2005). Effects of communication mode on social presence, virtual presence, and performance in collaborative virtual environments. Pres. Teleoper. Virtu. Environ. 14, 434–449. 10.1162/105474605774785253 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  188. Sallnäs E. L. (2010). Haptic feedback increases perceived social presence, in Haptics: Generating and Perceiving Tangible Sensations, eds Kappers A. M. L., van Erp J. B. F., Bergmann Tiest W. M., van der Helm F. C. T. (Berlin: Springer; ). 178–185. [Google Scholar]
  189. Sallnäs E. L., Rassmus-Gröhn K., Sjöström C. (2000). Supporting presence in collaborative environments by haptic force feedback. ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. 7, 461–476. 10.1145/365058.365086 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  190. Schroeder R., Steed A., Axelsson A. S., Heldal I., Abelin Å., Wideström J., et al. (2001). Collaborating in networked immersive spaces: as good as being there together? Comput. Graph. 25, 781–788. 10.1016/S0097-8493(01)00120-0 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  191. Schumann S., Klein O., Douglas K., Hewstone M. (2017). When is computer-mediated intergroup contact most promising? Examining the effect of out-group members' anonymity on prejudice. Comput. Human Behav. 77, 198–210. 10.1016/j.chb.2017.08.006 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  192. Shahid S., Krahmer E., Swerts M. (2012). Video-mediated and co-present gameplay: effects of mutual gaze on game experience, expressiveness and perceived social presence. Interact. Comput. 24, 292–305. 10.1016/j.intcom.2012.04.006 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  193. Shimoda T. A. (2007). Quitting smoking is easy, I've done it hundreds of times: intelligent agents, feedback loops, and relevant advice, in 57th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (San Francisco, CA: ). [Google Scholar]
  194. Short J., Williams E., Christie B. (1976). The Social Psychology of Telecommunications. New York, NY: John Wiley. [Google Scholar]
  195. Siriaraya P., Ang C. S. (2012). Age differences in the perception of social presence in the use of 3D virtual world for social interaction. Interact. Comput. 24, 280–291. 10.1016/j.intcom.2012.03.003 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  196. Skalski P., Tamborini R. (2007). The role of social presence in interactive agent-based persuasion. Media Psychol. 10, 385–413. 10.1080/15213260701533102 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  197. Skalski P., Whitbred R. (2010). Image versus sound: a comparison of formal feature effects on presence and video game enjoyment. PsychNology J. 8, 67–84. Available online at: http://www.psychnology.org/File/PNJ8(1)/PSYCHNOLOGY_JOURNAL_8_1_SKALSKI.pdf [Google Scholar]
  198. Skarbez R., Neyret S., Brooks F. P., Slater M., Whitton M. C. (2017). A psychophysical experiment regarding components of the plausibility illusion. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 23, 1369–1378. 10.1109/TVCG.2017.2657158 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  199. Slater M. (2004). How colorful was your day? Why questionnaires cannot assess presence in virtual environments. Pres. Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 13, 484–493. 10.1162/1054746041944849 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  200. Slater M. (2009). Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philos. Transact. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 364, 3549–3557. 10.1098/rstb.2009.0138 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  201. Slater M., McCarthy J., Maringelli F. (1998). The influence of body movement on subjective presence in virtual environments. Hum. Factors 40, 469–477. 10.1518/001872098779591368 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  202. Slater M., Pertaub D. P., Steed A. (1999). Public speaking in virtual reality: Facing an audience of avatars. IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl. 19, 6–9. 10.1109/38.749116 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  203. Slater M., Rovira A., Southern R., Swapp D., Zhang J. J., Campbell C., et al. (2013). Bystander responses to a violent incident in an immersive virtual environment. PLoS ONE 8:e52766. 10.1371/journal.pone.0052766 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  204. Slater M., Sadagic A., Usoh M., Schroeder R. (2000). Small-group behavior in a virtual and real environment: a comparative study. Pres. Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 9, 37–51. 10.1162/105474600566600 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  205. Slater M., Sanchez-Vives M. V. (2016). Enhancing our lives with immersive virtual reality. Front. Robot. AI 3:74 10.3389/frobt.2016.00074 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  206. Slater M., Spanlang B., Corominas D. (2010). Simulating virtual environments within virtual environments as the basis for a psychophysics of presence. ACM Trans. Graph. 29:92 10.1145/1778765.1778829 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  207. Slater M., Steed A. (2000). A virtual presence counter. Pres. Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 9, 413–434. 10.1162/105474600566925 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  208. Slater M., Wilbur S. (1997). A framework for immersive virtual environments (FIVE): Speculations on the role of presence in virtual environments. Pre. Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 6, 603–616. 10.1162/pres.1997.6.6.603 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  209. Steed A., Slater M., Sadagic A., Bullock A., Tromp J. (1999). Leadership and collaboration in shared virtual environments, in Proceedings of IEEE VR (New York, NY: IEEE; ). [Google Scholar]
  210. Steuer J. (1992). Defining virtual reality: dimensions determining telepresence. J. Commun. 42, 73–93. 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1992.tb00812.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  211. Swan K. (2002). Building learning communities in online courses: the importance of interaction. Educ. Commun. Inform. 2, 23–49. 10.1080/1463631022000005016 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  212. Swinth K. R., Blascovich J. (2001). Conformity to group norms in an immersive virtual environment, in Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Society (Toronto, ON: ). [Google Scholar]
  213. Tajfel H. (1979). Individuals and groups in social psychology. Br. J. Soc. Clin. Psychol. 18, 183–190. 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1979.tb00324.x [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  214. Takatalo J. (2002). Presence and Flow in Virtual Environments: An Explorative Study. Master's thesis, University of Helsinki, Helsinki. [Google Scholar]
  215. Takatalo J., Kawai T., Kaistinen J., Nyman G., Häkkinen J. (2011). User experience in 3D stereoscopic games. Media Psychol. 14, 387–414. 10.1080/15213269.2011.620538 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  216. Tanaka K., Nakanishi H., Ishiguro H. (2015). Physical embodiment can produce robot operator's pseudo presence. Front. ICT 2:8 10.3389/fict.2015.00008 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  217. Thayalan X., Shanthi A., Paridi T. (2012). Gender difference in social presence experienced in e-learning activities. Proc. Soc. Behav. Sci. 67, 580–589. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.363 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  218. Tu C.-H. (2002). The impacts of text-based CMC on online social presence. J. Interact. Online Learn. 1, 1–24. Available online at: http://openknowledge.nau.edu/2913/7/Chih-Hsiung_T_2002_The_Impacts_of_Text-based_CMC_on_Online_Social_Presence%281%29.pdf [Google Scholar]
  219. Verhagen T., van Nes J., Feldberg F., van Dolen W. (2014). Virtual customer service agents: using social presence and personalization to shape online service encounters. J. Comp. Med. Commun. 19, 529–545. 10.1111/jcc4.12066 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  220. Vishwanath A. (2016). Mobile device affordance: Explicating how smartphones influence the outcome of phishing attacks. Comput. Human Behav. 63, 198–207. 10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.035 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  221. von der Pütten M., Krämer N. C., Gratch J., Kang S. H. (2010). “It doesn't matter what you are!” explaining social effects of agents and avatars. Comput. Human Behav. 26, 1641–1650. 10.1016/j.chb.2010.06.012 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  222. Walther J. B. (1992). Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction a relational perspective. Communic. Res. 19, 52–90. 10.1177/009365092019001003 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  223. Walther J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Commun. Res. 23, 3–43. 10.1177/009365096023001001 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  224. Walther J. B., Parks M. R. (2002). Cues filtered out, cues filtered in: computer-mediated communication and relationships, in Handbook of Interpersonal Communication 3rd edn, eds Knapp M. L., Daly J. A. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; ). 529–563. [Google Scholar]
  225. Wei C.-W., Chen N.-S. (2012). A model for social presence in online classrooms. Educ. Technol. Res. Dev. 60, 529–545. 10.1007/s11423-012-9234-9 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  226. Welch R. B., Blackmon T. T., Liu A., Mellers B. A., Stark L. W. (1996). The effects of pictorial realism, delay of visual feedback, and observer interactivity on the subjective sense of presence. Pre Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 5, 263–273. 10.1162/pres.1996.5.3.263 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  227. Wideström J., Axelsson A. S., Schroeder R., Nilsson A., Heldal I., Abelin Å. (2000). The collaborative cube puzzle: a comparison of virtual and real environments, in Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Collaborative Virtual Environments (New York, NY: ACM; ). [Google Scholar]
  228. Witmer B. G., Singer M. J. (1998). Measuring presence in virtual environments: a presence questionnaire. Pres. Teleoperat. Virtu. Environ. 7, 225–240. 10.1162/105474698565686 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  229. Wu Y., Babu S. V., Armstrong R., Bertrand J. W., Luo J., Roy T., et al. (2014). Effects of virtual human animation on emotion contagion in simulated inter-personal experiences. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 20, 626–635. 10.1109/TVCG.2014.19 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  230. Wu Z., Li J., Theng Y. L. (2015). Examining the influencing factors of exercise intention among older adults: a controlled study between exergame and traditional exercise. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 18, 521–527. 10.1089/cyber.2015.0065 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  231. Xu K., Lombard M. (2017). Persuasive computing: Feeling peer pressure from multiple computer agents. Comput. Human Behav. 74, 152–162. 10.1016/j.chb.2017.04.043 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  232. Xu Q. (2014). Should I trust him? The effects of reviewer profile characteristics on eWOM credibility. Comput. Hum. Behav. 33, 136–144. 10.1016/j.chb.2014.01.027 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  233. Yoo Y., Alavi M. (2001). Media and group cohesion: Relative influences on social presence, task participation, and group consensus. Manage. Inform. Syst. Quart. 25, 371–390. 10.2307/3250922 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  234. Zelenkauskaite A., Bucy E. (2009). Presence, participation, and political text-on-television: testing a converged technology, in Proceedings of the 12th Annual International Workshop on Presence (Los Angeles, CA: ). [Google Scholar]
  235. Zhan Z., Mei H. (2013). Academic self-concept and social presence in face-to-face and online learning: Perceptions and effects on students' learning achievement and satisfaction across environments. Comput. Educ. 69, 131–138. 10.1016/j.compedu.2013.07.002 [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  236. Zibrek K., Kokkinara E., McDonnell R. (2017). Don't stand so close to me: investigating the effect of control on the appeal of virtual humans using immersion and a proximity-based behavioral task, in Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (New York, NY: ACM; ). [Google Scholar]

Articles from Frontiers in Robotics and AI are provided here courtesy of Frontiers Media SA

RESOURCES