Telepresence

Kaitlin Reilly Prof. Lombard

Psychological Processing of Media

March 2012

What is telepresence?• Telepresence is a sense of ‘being there’ in a virtual environment

• It is an illusion of non-mediation in which users of any technology overlook or misconstrue the technology’s role in their experience

• a subjective perception in which even though an individual’s current experience is generated by and/or filtered through human-made technology, the individual’s perception fails to accurately acknowledge the role of the technology in the experience

(ISPR 2012)

Examples of Presence Evoking Items

• 3D films • IMAX Experiences• Simulator Rides (Disney World’s “Star Tours”)• Smart Phones (FaceTime)• Teleconferencing Systems (Skype) • Robotics • Body-Connected Video Games (Wii, Xbox Kinect) • Alternate Reality Internet Sites (Second Life)• Automated Answering Machines • Instant Messenger Robots

Presence in Daily Life

iPhone’s “FaceTime” creates sensation that you are physically with the person on the other line

Virtual reality games fully immerse the user into the gaming experience

Virtual conferencing through web cameras can

make it feel like individuals meeting face

to face

Virtual pets mimic what it is like to have

a dog like companion

IMAX theatres submerse the audience into the films through 3D

effects, large screens, and surround sound

Presence in the Media

Surrogates (film, 2011)

Terminator (film, 1984)The Truman Show (film, 1998)

Star Wars (film, 1973)

Persons of Interest (tv, 2011) A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (film, 2001)

Persons Unknown (tv, 2010)

Spongebob Squarepants

(tv, 1999)

Reality… or Presence?

Cut a Hole in Your Torso with Two iPad 2s!

Augmented reality project Boston, MA

Lumus see-through video glasses create 87 inch virtual screen 10 feet from viewer

Highly graphic televisions look like

“window on the world”

Work Cited – Lombard, Matthew. "International Society for Presence Research ." Presence Defined . N.p., n.d. Web. 5

Mar 2012.

• IMAGES:– Lombard, Matthew. "Monthly Archives." International Society for Presence Research. N.p., 2010. Web. 5

Mar 2012. <http://ispr.info/2010/07/>.

International Movie Data Base. www.imdb.com