Presence and Augmented Reality

十多年来，“临场感”一直是理解和评估虚拟现实(VR)环境有效性的关键概念。VR研究人员使用这个术语来描述用户沉浸在虚拟世界中时的精神状态，并通常将存在等同于“身处虚拟世界”或“缺乏中介感”。增强现实(AR)系统是否也能实现在线状态，从而使用户失去中介感，并开始对沉浸在混合的物理/虚拟体验中做出反应，就好像它是一个单一的“世界”？这项研究的目标是通过实验评估一系列技术和环境因素对增强现实质量的影响，从而用科学支持的指导方针或最佳实践的“经验法则”取代希望创造增强现实体验的开发人员现在所认同的信念。为此，PI和他的团队将探索沉浸因素，包括图形帧速率和纹理质量、物理世界和虚拟世界之间的注册错误、虚拟世界对物理世界的错误遮挡，以及物理世界和虚拟世界之间的概念一致性。研究方法将基于研究人员在虚拟现实(VR)中探索在场的方法；这项工作的一个重要贡献将是方法本身对AR的适应和评估。PI将建立在北卡罗来纳大学VR“坑”实验的基础上，该实验利用强烈的生理反应(恐高症)来测量存在，开发一个产生类似生理反应的AR“坑”实验，并将使用它来评估各种沉浸因素对AR体验质量的影响。基于这些发现，PI将开发AR存在问卷，然后将其应用于评估更现实的环境，如历史遗迹。广泛影响：通过定义评估AR体验的框架，PI将使AR开发人员能够使用一套共享的工具和词汇来比较他们的工作。同样，影响AR体验的沉浸因素的指南将使非AR研究人员(如艺术家和教育工作者)能够更有效地探索AR的媒介，了解他们在定义新媒体丰富的基于位置的体验的要求时应该注意什么和不应该注意什么。PI预计AR将成为非正式教育和娱乐应用的强大工具，例如在历史区域，设计良好的AR环境有可能增强从市中心的学童到国际游客的广泛游客的教育和情感体验。这项研究将产生的评估技术和发展指导方针对此类项目的成功至关重要。

For more than a decade, "presence" has been a key concept for understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) environments. VR researchers have used this term to describe the mental state of the user in response to being immersed in a virtual world, and typically equate presence with a sense of "being in the virtual world" or "a lack of a sense of mediation." Can presence be achieved for augmented reality (AR) systems as well, so that the user loses the sense of mediation and begins to respond to being immersed in a blended physical/virtual experience as if it were a single "world?" The goal of this research is to experimentally evaluate the impact of a range of technical and environmental factors on the quality of AR, so as to replace the beliefs developers wishing to create AR experiences now subscribe to with scientifically-supported guidelines or "rules of thumb" for best practices. To these ends, the PI and his team will explore immersion factors including graphics frame rate and texture quality, registration errors between the physical and virtual worlds, incorrect occlusion of the physical world by the virtual world, and conceptual consistency between the physical and virtual worlds. The research methods will be based on those used by researchers exploring presence in virtual reality (VR); one significant contribution of this work will be the adaptation and evaluation of the methods themselves to AR. The PI will build on the UNC VR "Pit" experiment, which leveraged a strong physiological reaction (fear of heights) to measure of presence, to develop an AR "Pit" experiment that generates similar physiological reactions, and will use it to evaluate the impact of the various immersion factors on the quality of an AR experience. Based on these findings, the PI will develop an AR presence questionnaire, which will then be applied to evaluate more realistic environments such as historic sites.Broader Impacts: By defining a framework for evaluating AR experiences, the PI will enable AR developers to compare their work using a shared set of tools and vocabulary. Similarly, guidelines for the immersion factors that affect AR experiences will enable non-AR researchers (such as artists and educators) to more effectively explore the medium of AR with an understanding of what they should and should not pay attention to when defining the requirements of new media-rich location-based experiences. The PI envisages that AR will become a powerful tool for informal education and entertainment applications, e.g., in historic areas, where well-designed AR environments have the potential to enhance the educational and emotional experience of a wide demographic of visitors, ranging from inner-city school children to international tourists. The evaluation techniques and development guidelines that will result from this research are critical to the success of such projects.