Where Am I? How Can I Get There? Impact of Navigability and Narrative Transportation on Spatial Presence

Abstract

From video games to virtual worlds on the World Wide Web, modern media are becoming increasingly spatial, with users traversing artificial spaces and experiencing a kind of immersion known as “spatial presence.” But how do these media induce spatial presence? Are the affordances for movement provided by these technologies responsible for this illusion? Or do narratives that accompany them persuade us to suspend disbelief and transport ourselves into a virtual space? We explore these theoretical questions by pitting the navigability affordances of a video game against narrative transportation and examining their relative contributions to the formation of spatial presence in a virtual reality context. Results from a large experiment (N = 240) reveal that the narrative actually detracts from spatial presence while traversibility (in the form of greater degrees of steering motion) enhances it even without invoking a mental model of the portrayed environment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Notes

Acknowledgments. This research was supported by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation under the World Class University program funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, South Korea (Grant No. R31-2008-000-10062-0). We acknowledge the constructive comments by Loukas Kalisperis, Mary Beth Oliver, and Aleksandra Slavkovic during the design and conduct of this study. We are also grateful for the valuable insights and constructive criticism provided by Sharon Oviatt and the two anonymous reviewers.

HCI Editorial Record. First manuscript received July 8, 2009. Revisions received January 15, 2010 and May 24, 2010. Accepted by Richard Pew. Final manuscript received June 27, 2010. — Editor