Novel Approaches to Immersive Media: From Enlarged Field-of-View to Multi-sensorial Experiences - Novel 3D Media Technologies - page 9

The encyclopedia of positive psychology defines enjoyment as “ engagement in a
challenging experience that either includes or results in a positive affective state ”
[ 3 ]. Csikszentmihalyi, the father of the theory of the optimal experience, concep-
tualizes the term beyond pleasure, arguing that enjoyment is characterized by
“ forward movement that accomplishes something novel or challenging, resulting
in a growth experience ”[ 4 ]. Indeed, an enjoyable media experience presents
several features inherent to the state of flow, such as: intense and focused concen-
tration, merging of action and awareness, loss of reflective self-consciousness,
distortion of temporal experience, and experience of the activity as intrinsically
rewarding [ 5 ].
The components and dynamics underlying media enjoyment have been studied
across a great variety of genres as a dependent variable of personality traits,
individual differences, mood, content characteristics, social context, or a combina-
tion of these. As a result, it has been characterized as a multidimensional construct
conditioned by affective components in a first place but also by cognitive and
behavioral factors [ 6 - 11 ] . In particular, emotional enjoyment has been found
closely linked to entertainment as a media effect, which at the same time correlates
with some of the more frequently reported motivations for media use: arousal, to
pass time, relaxation, and to escape. In this sense, media provides a mean to “ escape
to a fantasy world where emotions can be experienced ”[ 1 ].
2.1.2 Presence
The desire of escaping from reality (or to some extent, of being “transported” to a
different place) leads to the concept of presence, which is defined as “ the subjective
experience of being in one place ”, even when the person is physically located in
another [ 12 ].
The sense of presence has been widely analyzed as a mean to describe the
psychological mechanisms underlying user experience with entertaining techno-
logies, with particular emphasis on interactive computer-generated applications.
Presence has been found strongly related to the capability of mediated environ-
ments—including 3DTV, videogames, and artistic and cultural heritage Virtual
Environments (VEs)—to elicit emotions [ 13 , 14 ] and in particular, enjoyment [ 15 ,
16 ]. In consequence, an enhanced sense of presence is considered to have a direct
impact on the adoption potential of these entertaining applications.
The factors influencing the subjective sense of presence can be classified as
those related to the media form, the media content and the media users [ 17 ]. Media
form is related to the extent and fidelity of sensory information and to the consis-
tency between the sensory inputs/outputs presented through the different modalities
[ 12 , 17 , 18 ]. In other words, it encompasses those features characterizing in an
objective manner the capability of a specific software and hardware solution to
deliver a rich and consistent multi-sensorial media content in a transparent manner