This article presents a user experiment that assesses the feeling of spatial presence, defined as the sense of “being there” in both a real and a remote environment (respectively the so-called “natural presence” and “telepresence”). Twenty-eight participants performed a 3D-pointing task while being either physically located in a real office or remotely transported by a teleoperation system. The evaluation also included the effect of combining audio and visual rendering. Spatial presence and its components were evaluated using the ITC-SOPI questionnaire (Lessiter, Freeman, Keogh, & Davidoff, 2001). In addition, objective metrics based on user performance and behavioral indicators were logged. Results indicate that participants experienced a higher sense of spatial presence in the remote environment (hyper-presence), and a higher ecological validity. In contrast, objective metrics prove higher in the real environment, which highlights the absence of correlation between spatial presence and the objective metrics used in the experiment. Moreover, results show the benefit of adding audio rendering in both environments to increase the sense of spatial presence, the performance of participants, and their engagement during the task.

中文翻译：

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真实和远程沉浸式环境中的空间存在和多感官刺激的影响

本文介绍了一个用户实验，用于评估空间临场感，定义为在真实和远程环境中的“身临其境”感（分别是所谓的“自然临场感”和“远程临场感”）。28 名参与者在实际位于真实办公室或由远程操作系统远程传输时执行 3D 指向任务。评测还包括了音频和视觉渲染相结合的效果。使用 ITC-SOPI 问卷（Lessiter、Freeman、Keogh 和 Davidoff，2001 年）评估空间存在及其组成部分。此外，还记录了基于用户表现和行为指标的客观指标。结果表明，参与者在远程环境中体验到了更高的空间存在感（超存在感），和更高的生态效度。相比之下，客观指标在真实环境中证明更高，这突出了空间存在与实验中使用的客观指标之间缺乏相关性。此外，结果显示了在两种环境中添加音频渲染的好处，以增加空间感、参与者的表现以及他们在任务期间的参与度。