A Systematic Review of Social Presence: Definition, Antecedents, and Implications

By Catherine S. Oh, Jeremy N. Bailenson, G. Welch. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2018

973 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Social presence, or the feeling of being there with a “real” person, is a crucial component of interactions that take place in virtual reality. This paper reviews the concept, antecedents, and implications of social presence, with a focus on the literature regarding the predictors of social presence. The article begins by exploring the concept of social presence, distinguishing it from two other dimensions of presence—telepresence and self-presence. After establishing the definition of social presence, the article offers a systematic review of 233 separate findings identified from 152 studies that investigate the factors (i.e., immersive qualities, contextual differences, and individual psychological traits) that predict social presence. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of heightened social presence and when it does and does not enhance one's experience in a virtual environment.

Subfields: Literature and Literary Theory, Ocean Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/45ea73b996afbdb901072e8e3550271bff30c7e7

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

Citations in the corpus

Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College (background): “To start with, because most sociological studies deal only”