From: andy@binkley.berkeley.edu (Andy Liu)
Subject: SCI:  Measuring telepresence!
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 18:05:12 GMT-0800



I recall that one recent (?) thread in this newsgroup involved trying to come
up with a definition for TELEPRESENCE. Without starting up the whole thing
again, I would like to know if anyone has tried to measure telepresence
experimentally? I am primarily interested in any experiments trying to quan-
tify presence/telepresence in a virtual environment by subjective responses, 
but references to experiments using other methods, i.e. measuring physiological
changes, reaction time, would also be of interest.

The reason I am interested in finding any past work on telepresence is that
I've started a project with Dr. Robert Welch of NASA-Ames with the goal of
qualifying and measuring telepresence in virtual environments and also
examining its relevance to the performance of tasks, i.e. telerobotics. It
seems to be a generally held belief that better telepresence will improve per-
formance.  Unfortunately, I haven't found any solid data much less any
experiments that prove or disprove this notion.

Currently, we are trying to develop a questionnaire that we could ask subjects
after being in a virtual environment and doing some task, i.e. telerobotic
manipulation or driving. The current form is a 7-point Likert scale with
only 10 questions (still in the early stages! :-)). Has anyone every tried this
approach? It is commonly used by psychologists to assess the the quality of an
experience and seems like a good place to start. Considering all the discus-
sion, someone out there must have tried this before! Some of the discussion 
in this group has been very helpful to me in forming the preliminary list of 
questions, and I thought I'd tap into the group for more ideas.

Any references or thoughts about experimental methods would be greatly
appreciated. I have been too busy to read the group regularly, so please
respond by e-mail. I will summarize if there is any interest.

Thanks,

Andy Liu					483 Minor Hall
andy@binkley.berkeley.edu			University of California
andy4@garnet.berkeley.edu			Berkeley, CA 94720
						510-642-5309