IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph. 2020 Dec;26(12):3467-3478. doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2020.3023574. Epub 2020 Nov 10.
Spatial presence encompasses the user's ability to experience a sense of "being there". While particular attention was given to assess spatial presence in real and virtual environments, few have been interested in measuring it in telepresence situations. To bridge this gap, the present work introduces a study that compares the execution of a task in three conditions: a real physical environment, a remote environment via a telepresence system, and a virtual simulation of the real environment. Following a within-subject design, 27 participants performed a navigation task consisting in following a route while avoiding obstacles. Spatial presence and five related factors (affordance, enjoyment, attention allocation, reality, and cybersickness) were evaluated using a presence questionnaire. In addition, performance measures were gathered regarding environment recollection and task execution. The evaluation also included a behavioral metric measured by obstacle avoidance distance extracted from participants' trajectories. Results indicated a higher presence in the real environment, along with the best performance measures. No difference was found in spatial presence between the remote and the virtual conditions, although a higher degree of affordance and enjoyment was attributed to the virtual environment, and a higher degree of reality was attributed to the remote environment. The number of collisions was found to be lower in the remote condition compared to the virtual condition. Similarly, the avoidance distance was also bigger (and almost similar) in the real and the remote environments compared to the virtual environment indicating a greater caution of participants. These cues highlight that the behavior of participants in the remote condition was closer to their behavior in the real situation than it was in the virtual condition. Furthermore, positive correlations were found between the reality factor and two of the three performance measures, as well as with the behavioral metric. This suggests that the degree of physical existence of the space in which participants operate can influence their performance and behavior.
空间存在感包括用户体验“身临其境”的能力。虽然特别关注评估真实和虚拟环境中的空间存在感，但很少有人有兴趣测量远程呈现情况下的空间存在感。为了弥补这一差距，本研究介绍了一项比较三种条件下执行任务的研究：真实物理环境、通过远程呈现系统的远程环境和真实环境的虚拟模拟。采用被试内设计，27 名参与者执行了一项导航任务，即沿着路线行驶同时避开障碍物。使用存在感问卷评估空间存在感和五个相关因素（可及性、享受、注意力分配、真实性和网络晕动症）。此外，还收集了有关环境回忆和任务执行的绩效指标。评估还包括从参与者轨迹中提取的回避距离来衡量的行为指标。结果表明，真实环境中的存在感更高，同时绩效指标也更好。远程和虚拟条件之间的空间存在感没有差异，尽管虚拟环境的可及性和享受程度更高，而远程环境的真实性更高。与虚拟环境相比，远程环境中的碰撞次数更少。同样，与虚拟环境相比，远程环境中的回避距离也更大（几乎相同），表明参与者更加小心谨慎。这些线索表明，参与者在远程条件下的行为更接近他们在真实情况下的行为，而不是在虚拟条件下的行为。此外，现实因素与三个绩效指标中的两个以及行为指标之间存在正相关关系。这表明参与者所操作的空间的物理存在程度可以影响他们的表现和行为。
