Information Technology Reference
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Table 7.2 Factors relevant
for achieving social presence
in terms of individual
differences
Individual differences
Age and gender
Selective attention
Emotional state
Personality
Knowledge and prior experience
Knowledge and prior experience with the medium likewise influence the sense
of social presence. Social presence varies across individuals and across time for the
same individual. When we have been exposed for a long time to media artifacts
we have a higher knowledge of interacting with it, and it is possible to have an
increased feeling of social presence. However, most times continued experiences
causes the well-known habituation or novelty effect (Karapanos et al. 2009 ), this
effect causes an initially higher sense of presence that fades away as users become
more experienced with novel technology. This novelty effect is present in almost all
types of media, including artificial agents or robots (Gockley et al. 2005 ).
In Table 7.2 we list the factors that influence social presence in terms of individual
differences.
Realism When we are watching a dramatic film, playing a video game or interacting
with a virtual character, if the story or persona being presented to us makes sense
and is consistent with the experience the story, or character is more likely to ring true
for its users. Below, some factors that influence the realism of artificial opponents
are described (also summarised in Table 7.3 ).
The ability to attribute mental states to oneself and to others is fundamental to
human cognition and social behaviour (Sodian and Kristen 2010 ). Biocca et al.
( 2001b ), quoted the importance that theoryof mind has in social presence. He defines
social presence as the sense of “being together with another” and attributes this sense
to the ability to relate to, or to construct mental models of another's intelligence. If
we can interact with an agent and create a mental model of its behaviour it will helps
us to anticipate the agent's behaviour and to judge its consistency.
The number and quality of the sensory channels are important for generating
a sense of presence, but the consistency between all of the different modalities
is one of the most important keys for achieving social presence: “the information
received through all channels should describe the same objective world” (Lombard
and Ditton 1997 ). If we do not meet this criterion, we emphasize the artificial and
lessen the feeling of social presence. Correlations between actions and reactions
should be credible when compared to events that would be expected in reality in
similar circumstances.
Slater ( 2009 ), refers that another important factor for presence is the existence
of some events not directly related to the users' actions, showing some autonomy in
the environment or character. In a cave like environment (Garau et al. 2004 ) partic-
ipants spent approximately five minutes in a virtual bar interacting with five virtual
characters. Participants reported to automatically respond to the virtual characters
present in the bar in social ways. They attempted to engage virtual characters by
 
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