Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
The meaning of being present is changing in our society. At one time it meant physical face to face contact or the direct sensory impact of an immediate physical environment. But other modes of presence are insinuating themselves. Modes of telepresencing and imaginal presencing. The teleportation of the experiencing self thru technologically-constructed media to other places--to other senses of placeness and remoteness. Cellphones, the internet, video games, and HD television now serve as portals thru which our awareness delocalizes itself and extends into the nonlocal non-physical spaces of virtuality. Other themes follow this: themes of disembodiment, bilocation, ubiquity, and temporal dislocation. What is the human evolving into, when a man is as Whitman proclaimed of himself, no longer contained between his boots and his hat?
"Although users of virtual reality systems who have experienced telepresence know "how it feels" [(e. g. Rheingold, 1991)], the concept of telepresence can be defined and measured in a number of ways.
The Idea of Telepresence as Transportation:
Departure, Arrival, and Return from a Mediated Place or Space
The users of today's mass media, such as books, newspapers, magazine, and television can feel present in the remote or artificial environment created by the mediated information. According to [(Gerrig, 1993)], a reader of a book can be phenomenally transported to the narrative environment created by the medium. Specifically, Gerrig's theory of "being transported" includes the following propositions:
1. Someone ("the traveler") is transported
2. by some means of transportation
3. as a result of performing certain actions.
4. The traveler goes some distance from his or her environment of origin
5. that makes some aspects of the environment of origin inaccessible.
6. The traveler returns to the environment of origin, somewhat changed by the journey. (pp. 10-11)
With little doubt, Gerrig's concept of "being transported" seems equivalent to that of "being there," a handy name for telepresence used by some human-computer interaction researchers [(e.g., Heeter, 1992, 1995; Reeves, Detenber, & Steuer, 1993)]. The rationale of "being transported" is that a reader is phenomenally transferred to a mediated environment, resulting from low accessibility to the unmediated information and high accessibility to the mediated information. The concept of telepresence describes the same psychological phenomenon.
[(Gerrig, 1993)] also argues that the sense of being transported to a mediated environment, or telepresence, is a moment-by-moment feeling. This indicates that, at a given time, the sense of presence is limited to one environment and the sense of presence in the mediated environment, or telepresence, cannot be mixed with the sense of presence in the unmediated environment. This indivisible sense of presence does not allow such concepts as auditory presence or visual presence, though such modality-based classification is possible in the cases of attention, perception, and awareness.
Where is the Person Present?
The Physical Space, the Mediated Space or the Imaginal Space
We hypothesize that the sensation of presence is unstable and oscillates around three senses of place. From moment-to-moment the user may feel present in the physical environment, the virtual environment, or the imaginal environment (i.e., the space of daydreams, dreams, and hallucinations).
Clearly the sense of presence was not created just for use with virtual environments. Rather, as [Loomis (1992)] points out, presence is a basic state of consciousness, the attribution of sensation to some distal stimulus, or more broadly to some environment. The senses and the brain are the recipient of a continuum of sensations, patterns of energy directly impinging on the senses. In perceptual psychology this is known as the proximal stimulus. Some of this continuum of sensation is separated into the set of sensations emanating from inside the body, the self, and those emanating from "outside" the body, the non-self. The non-self is the environment we perceive around us [(See Loomis, 1992)]. In modern technological environments what we perceive "around us" may be the physical environment or it may come from a display like a television screen that mimics through colored dots on a screen the pattern of lights from another environment, for example, the virtual environment represented on a television or computer screen. As individuals experience sensations coming from the physical environment or the virtual environment, their sense of presence, or being there, may oscillate moment-to-moment between these two senses of place, or they may withdraw their attention to these stimuli and retreat into the imagination. Therefore, at any moment users might feel "present" in one of three places:
Presence in a Physical Environment (Distal Immediate)
The default sense of "being there" is the basic state of consciousness in which the user attributes the source of the sensation to the physical environment. We have been present in this environment for so long and it is so natural that the idea that presence might be a psychological construct is usually only raised by philosophers and perceptual psychologists.
Presence in a Virtual Environment (Distal Mediated)
Virtual environments are those environments artificially constructed in any communication medium. When the incoming information from the unmediated physical space is technologically or attentionally diminished or suppressed, and the media interface allows the mind to focus on information coming from the virtual environment, a person may experience telepresence. Otherwise called "virtual presence" [(Barfield & Weghorst, 1993; Sheridan, 1992)], telepresence is a subjective sensation of being present in a remote or artificial environment but not in the surrounding physical environment [(Held & Durlach, 1992; Sheridan, 1992; Steuer, 1995)].
Presence in an Imaginal Environment (Reduced Attention to Distal Stimuli)
Dreaming and daydreaming reveal that there is another place we can be present, an environment dominated by internally generated mental imagery. In dreams, and to a lesser degree in hallucinations and daydreaming , it is apparent that the mind is capable of producing very compelling spatial environments. Even though all of the "sensations" are manufactured by the mind, part of these sensations are experienced as "me" and the rest are experiences as "not me": environments with places, people, and things. But these imaginal environments do not rely on stimuli impinging the senses and, therefore are not directly influenced by media."----------http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue2/kim.html
"Although users of virtual reality systems who have experienced telepresence know "how it feels" [(e. g. Rheingold, 1991)], the concept of telepresence can be defined and measured in a number of ways.
The Idea of Telepresence as Transportation:
Departure, Arrival, and Return from a Mediated Place or Space
The users of today's mass media, such as books, newspapers, magazine, and television can feel present in the remote or artificial environment created by the mediated information. According to [(Gerrig, 1993)], a reader of a book can be phenomenally transported to the narrative environment created by the medium. Specifically, Gerrig's theory of "being transported" includes the following propositions:
1. Someone ("the traveler") is transported
2. by some means of transportation
3. as a result of performing certain actions.
4. The traveler goes some distance from his or her environment of origin
5. that makes some aspects of the environment of origin inaccessible.
6. The traveler returns to the environment of origin, somewhat changed by the journey. (pp. 10-11)
With little doubt, Gerrig's concept of "being transported" seems equivalent to that of "being there," a handy name for telepresence used by some human-computer interaction researchers [(e.g., Heeter, 1992, 1995; Reeves, Detenber, & Steuer, 1993)]. The rationale of "being transported" is that a reader is phenomenally transferred to a mediated environment, resulting from low accessibility to the unmediated information and high accessibility to the mediated information. The concept of telepresence describes the same psychological phenomenon.
[(Gerrig, 1993)] also argues that the sense of being transported to a mediated environment, or telepresence, is a moment-by-moment feeling. This indicates that, at a given time, the sense of presence is limited to one environment and the sense of presence in the mediated environment, or telepresence, cannot be mixed with the sense of presence in the unmediated environment. This indivisible sense of presence does not allow such concepts as auditory presence or visual presence, though such modality-based classification is possible in the cases of attention, perception, and awareness.
Where is the Person Present?
The Physical Space, the Mediated Space or the Imaginal Space
We hypothesize that the sensation of presence is unstable and oscillates around three senses of place. From moment-to-moment the user may feel present in the physical environment, the virtual environment, or the imaginal environment (i.e., the space of daydreams, dreams, and hallucinations).
Clearly the sense of presence was not created just for use with virtual environments. Rather, as [Loomis (1992)] points out, presence is a basic state of consciousness, the attribution of sensation to some distal stimulus, or more broadly to some environment. The senses and the brain are the recipient of a continuum of sensations, patterns of energy directly impinging on the senses. In perceptual psychology this is known as the proximal stimulus. Some of this continuum of sensation is separated into the set of sensations emanating from inside the body, the self, and those emanating from "outside" the body, the non-self. The non-self is the environment we perceive around us [(See Loomis, 1992)]. In modern technological environments what we perceive "around us" may be the physical environment or it may come from a display like a television screen that mimics through colored dots on a screen the pattern of lights from another environment, for example, the virtual environment represented on a television or computer screen. As individuals experience sensations coming from the physical environment or the virtual environment, their sense of presence, or being there, may oscillate moment-to-moment between these two senses of place, or they may withdraw their attention to these stimuli and retreat into the imagination. Therefore, at any moment users might feel "present" in one of three places:
Presence in a Physical Environment (Distal Immediate)
The default sense of "being there" is the basic state of consciousness in which the user attributes the source of the sensation to the physical environment. We have been present in this environment for so long and it is so natural that the idea that presence might be a psychological construct is usually only raised by philosophers and perceptual psychologists.
Presence in a Virtual Environment (Distal Mediated)
Virtual environments are those environments artificially constructed in any communication medium. When the incoming information from the unmediated physical space is technologically or attentionally diminished or suppressed, and the media interface allows the mind to focus on information coming from the virtual environment, a person may experience telepresence. Otherwise called "virtual presence" [(Barfield & Weghorst, 1993; Sheridan, 1992)], telepresence is a subjective sensation of being present in a remote or artificial environment but not in the surrounding physical environment [(Held & Durlach, 1992; Sheridan, 1992; Steuer, 1995)].
Presence in an Imaginal Environment (Reduced Attention to Distal Stimuli)
Dreaming and daydreaming reveal that there is another place we can be present, an environment dominated by internally generated mental imagery. In dreams, and to a lesser degree in hallucinations and daydreaming , it is apparent that the mind is capable of producing very compelling spatial environments. Even though all of the "sensations" are manufactured by the mind, part of these sensations are experienced as "me" and the rest are experiences as "not me": environments with places, people, and things. But these imaginal environments do not rely on stimuli impinging the senses and, therefore are not directly influenced by media."----------http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue2/kim.html
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