Revisiting the use of secondary task reaction time measures in telepresence research: exploring the role of immersion and attention

Gift of fantasy: investigating how fantasy in digital game impacts game brand immersion

Purpose

This research aims to extend brand relationship theory to the domain of online gaming by augmenting the understanding of the role played by fantasy state in digital game in impacting gamers' immersive relationships with digital game brands. In this quest, the research examines how fantasy state in game (FSG) creates game brand immersion (GBI) through the mediation of emotional game brand attachment (EGBA) and the roles of individual's need for escapism (NE) and anxious attachment style (AAS) in moderating the aforementioned relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

The research employs a pre-test followed by two quantitative studies. Quantitative data were analyzed using the PROCESS macro.

Findings

Results from Study 1 illustrate that perceived fantasy in game generates EGBA, which, in turn, predicts GBI. Further, Study 2 establishes that the effect of fantasy in game on EGBA is moderated by gamer's NE. The moderating effect of NE is moderated by individual's AAS.

Originality/value

Value of the study lies in extending consumer–brand relationship theory to digital gaming domain which enhances the understanding of how fantasy state in digital game can lead to GBI and the roles played by individual personality characteristics like escapism motivation and AAS in the process.

Spatial Presence, Performance, and Behavior between Real, Remote, and Virtual Immersive Environments

Spatial presence encompasses the user's ability to experience a sense of "being there". While particular attention was given to assess spatial presence in real and virtual environments, few have been interested in measuring it in telepresence situations. To bridge this gap, the present work introduces a study that compares the execution of a task in three conditions: a real physical environment, a remote environment via a telepresence system, and a virtual simulation of the real environment. Following a within-subject design, 27 participants performed a navigation task consisting in following a route while avoiding obstacles. Spatial presence and five related factors (affordance, enjoyment, attention allocation, reality, and cybersickness) were evaluated using a presence questionnaire. In addition, performance measures were gathered regarding environment recollection and task execution. The evaluation also included a behavioral metric measured by obstacle avoidance distance extracted from participants' trajectories. Results indicated a higher presence in the real environment, along with the best performance measures. No difference was found in spatial presence between the remote and the virtual conditions, although a higher degree of affordance and enjoyment was attributed to the virtual environment, and a higher degree of reality was attributed to the remote environment. The number of collisions was found to be lower in the remote condition compared to the virtual condition. Similarly, the avoidance distance was also bigger (and almost similar) in the real and the remote environments compared to the virtual environment indicating a greater caution of participants. These cues highlight that the behavior of participants in the remote condition was closer to their behavior in the real situation than it was in the virtual condition. Furthermore, positive correlations were found between the reality factor and two of the three performance measures, as well as with the behavioral metric. This suggests that the degree of physical existence of the space in which participants operate can influence their performance and behavior.

Multimodal Evaluation of the Differences between Real and Virtual Assemblies

What are the technological bottlenecks in virtual assembly simulations with haptic feedback? To tackle this question, we present an evaluation study in which real feedback modalities are gradually replaced by synthetic ones. In particular, the effects of the following factors on the user performance and perception during virtual assemblies are analyzed: () a visual feedback system consisting of an nVisor head-mounted display, () our haptic device HUG suited for unscaled upper-body movements, and () our novel six-DoF constraint-based haptic rendering algorithm. Besides that, the influence of ( ) real collision sounds is also examined to a lesser extent. The experimental assembly scenario consisted of three variations of peg-in-hole tasks which were performed by a total of participants in a within-design study. The mentioned three synthetic factors ( )-( ) gradually replaced in five degrees or steps the real feedback sources, ending up in completely virtual assembly simulations. For each of the degrees, three objective variables (completion time, collision forces, and muscular effort) and five subjective ratings (related to the perception of realism and the workload) were recorded and statistically analyzed. In order to explain subjective perception also with objective measures, reaction times of a secondary audio task performed in parallel with the assembly exercises were recorded, too. While previous works have mainly focused on differences of completion time between real and virtual manipulations, our results show how all of the mentioned twelve performance and perception indicators are influenced by each of the four varied feedback factors, building a multi-modality relationship function that maps our or similar systems and expected user responses. In general, the haptic feedback modality turned out to have the largest impact on the dependent variables, particularly the HUG interface, whereas audio cues seemed to be less significant. We quantify these previous and further qualitative statements within the domain defined by the used systems. Moreover, the relationship of our insights with related other work is discussed, and their projections are outlined.