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Physiological measures of presence

Laubacher, Timothy Charles
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1407237660

Abstract Details

2006, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Journalism and Communication.
Presence is considered to be the perceptual illusion of nonmediation that occurs when technology users lose awareness of their physical surroundings during media-use. Experienced presence is commonly measured with subjective self-report questionnaires. However, this operationalization is problematic, because presence is an involuntary perceptual change and self-report questionnaires are most appropriate when evaluating conscious and voluntary experiences. In an effort to find a more objective, valid, and reliable measure of presence, this thesis compares physiological responses, specifically heart rate and electrodermal activity, between participants who viewed Robosapien V2, a programmed robot, in small-screen television, large-screen television, and nonmediated environment groups. The large-screen group participants experienced significantly greater subjective presence than did the participants in the small-screen group, which significantly supported Hypothesis 1. The manipulation of presence by screen-size allowed for comparison of physiological responses between high- and low-presence groups. Heart rate measured in change in beats per minute during the stimulus presentation was greater for participants in the large-screen group than for those in the small-screen group, but only marginally so. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was not supported. Hypothesis 3 predicted that participants who viewed the large-screen display would have skin conductance response greater than the skin conductance responses of the participants who viewed the small-screen display, and the participants in the nonmediated environment would have skin conductance responses greater than those of the two mediated conditions. The data significantly supported Hypothesis 3 when analyzing skin conductance response frequency, but not when analyzing maximum skin conductance response magnitude. The results of this thesis suggest that skin conductance response, an indicator of electrodermal activity, may serve as a valid and objective measure of presence to compliment or supplement the use of self-report questionnaires in future presence research.
Prabu David (Advisor)
Samuel Bradley (Committee Member)
42 p.
Communication; Journalism

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Laubacher, T. C. (2006). Physiological measures of presence [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1407237660

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Laubacher, Timothy. Physiological measures of presence. 2006. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1407237660.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Laubacher, Timothy. "Physiological measures of presence." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1407237660

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1407237660
217
© 2006, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.