Presence and Reality Judgment in Virtual Environments: A Unitary Construct?

TLDR

Presence and reality judgment are key variables in virtual reality, yet reality judgment has received less attention and may or may not overlap with presence. The study seeks to create a self‑report instrument that measures both constructs. The instrument is validated using Spanish and North American samples.

Abstract

Presence and reality judgment are two important variables to take into account in the virtual reality field. So far, scientific literature has paid (and pays) attention to the construct of presence, trying to offer assessment measures that could seize such an elusive concept. However, the concept of reality judgment has received less attention, and, frequently, it has been subsumed into the concept of presence. Not much effort has been dedicated to test whether or not both constructs refer to the same domain. Most likely there are relationships between both variables, but it is also possible that they have differentiated domains. The aim of the present work is to design a self-report measure that assesses both constructs, and to carry out the validation process with Spanish and North American samples.