Tilo Hartmann

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | VU · Department of Communication Science

The study of spatial presence is currently receiving increased attention in both media psychology and communication research. The present paper introduces the Spatial Presence Experience Scale (SPES), a short eight-item self-report measure. The SPES is derived from a process model of spatial presence (Wirth et al., 2007, Media Psychology, 9, 493–52...

Inspired by the widely recognized idea that in VR/XR, not only presence but also encountered plausibility is relevant (Slater, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 2009, 364 (1535), 3549-3557), we propose a general psychological parallel processing account to explain users' VR and XR experience. The model adopts a broad psychological view by building on interdi...

This chapter takes a close look at the conceptualization of parasocial interaction (PSI), i.e., users' illusionary experience, during media exposure, of being in a reciprocal social interaction with a media performer (while objectively this is not the case). The chapter discusses existing conceptual challenges and boundary conditions, and proposes...

Social virtual reality (social VR) platforms are gaining popularity among users. Previous qualitative research suggests that feelings of presence can make these platforms an attractive environment to obtain social support from others. Building on these exploratory insights, we carried out a quantitative study to illuminate how different types of pr...

Author's (pre-print) version: This chapter reviews the basic psychological characteristics of immersive user experiences, provided by, e.g., virtual or augmented reality technologies. Different sensations of presence define the core of the experience, yet these might be embedded into a knowing user state “that this is not really happening” (media a...

Research on parasocial phenomena is thriving, and parasocial processing emerged as a key concept in the wake of this trend. The PSI-Process Scales (Schramm & Hartmann, 2008) initially provided a comprehensive tool for assessing parasocial processing, quickly becoming a widely used measure in the field. However, the scale’s extensive length has pose...

Research on parasocial phenomena is thriving, and parasocial processing emerged as a key concept in the wake of this trend. The PSI-Process Scales (Schramm & Hartmann, 2008) initially provided a comprehensive tool for assessing parasocial processing, quickly becoming a widely used measure in the field. However, the scale’s extensive length has pose...

Large parts of museum collections, particularly in the Netherlands, are a legacy of the colonial past, guiding people’s societal perceptions of cultures and histories. There have been increasing efforts to ensure that museums acknowledge and reveal to visitors the multiple (e.g., cultural) meanings and contexts attached to objects in these collecti...

360°-video stories represent a popular new story format, particularly in the community striving to use “VR for Good”. Yet, due to the novelty of the format, many questions about the right “grammar” to tell effective 360°-video stories exist, including questions about how to engage users in interactive and immersive stories via VR without overwhelmi...

Social virtual reality (social VR) platforms gained popularity among users over the last few years. They provide users with a sense of social presence, potentially stimulating social interaction in distance education. Insights on how VR enhances the social aspects of learning are scarce, however, and past examinations often focused on the effects o...

Previous research shows that virtual reality (VR) users may experience symptoms of depersonalization/derealization (DPDR) immediately after use. However, the impact of long-term VR use on these symptoms has not been analyzed so far. In a preregistered study, we conducted an online survey among a bigger sample of VR users (N = 754) to investigate th...

Similar to debates about other new media technologies in the past, with the popularization of virtual reality (VR) technologies, concerns are raised about their potential to breed media addiction. In response to these concerns, the aim of this research was to provide a first examination of the prevalence of addiction to VR application use. An onlin...

Social virtual reality (VR) platforms are an emergent phenomenon, with growing numbers of users utilizing them to connect with others while experiencing feelings of presence (“being there”). This article examines the associations between feelings of presence and the activities performed by users, and the psychological benefits obtained in terms of...

Inspired by the widely recognized idea that in VR, not only presence but also encountered plausibility is relevant (Slater, 2009), we propose a general psychological parallel processing account to explain users' VR and XR experience. The model adopts a broad psychological view by building on interdisciplinary literature on the dualistic nature of p...

Background: Disinformation has become an increasing societal concern, especially due to the speed that news is shared in the digital era. In particular, disinformation in the health care sector can lead to serious casualties, as the current COVID-19 crisis clearly shows. Objective: The main aim of this study was to experimentally examine the eff...

BACKGROUND Disinformation has become an increasing societal concern, especially due to the speed that news is shared in the digital era. In particular, disinformation in the health care sector can lead to serious casualties, as the current COVID-19 crisis clearly shows. OBJECTIVE The main aim of this study was to experimentally examine the effects...

Alongside the development of VR technology, empirical research and theorizing on VR entertainment is also expanding. Currently missing is an integrative conceptual framework that identifies properties of VR that distinguish it from other currently available entertainment media. In the present chapter we attempt a step in this direction. After revie...

In the present study, we examine the effect of plausibility violations in a virtual environment (VE) on spatial presence. After reviewing research on the association between plausibility and spatial presence, we present a dual-systems approach to understanding the effect of plausibility (or violations thereof) on spatial presence. We conceptualize...

The relationship between self-control and media use is complicated. Loss of self-control capacity has been linked to generally higher levels of media use, which might represent self-regulatory failure, but could also be attempts at replenishing self-control. Indeed, self-determination theory proposes that satisfying intrinsic psychological needs (a...

The aim of this chapter is to provide a framework which structures different aspects that might positively and negatively influence the sensations nonliving sexual partners might evoke in order to guide future empirical research in the investigation of sexual responses toward machines. For this purpose, influential concepts from media psychology, h...

The hostile media effect (HME) entails that partisanship incites hostile perceptions of media content. However, other research underscores that partisans selectively turn to like-minded media, resulting in a friendly media phenomenon (FMP). The present study suggests that the HME and FMP co-exist, and, furthermore, jointly affect people’s voting be...

Does the experience of parasocial interaction (EPSI) increase the persuasiveness of a video message? In a between-subjects experiment (N = 465) we used bodily addressing to successfully vary EPSI in viewers of three brief video-recorded health messages. This manipulation, however, yielded no significant effect on viewers’ perceived persuasiveness o...

This paper introduces the concept of "virtual bad guys": intelligent virtual agents that take a negative or even aggressive stance towards the user. Although they pave the way to various interesting applications, it is hard to create virtual bad guys that are taken seriously by the user, since they are typically unable to apply serious sanctions. T...

Interest in the meaningful sides of media entertainment has blossomed over the last decade, with numerous scholars examining how certain media content can enhance social good and well-being. Because social scientific work in this area is relatively new and is rapidly evolving, numerous conceptualizations of meaningful media experiences have been in...

Many people live in a media-rich environment, where media content and mediated communication options are easily accessible and almost always available independent from time and place. We argue that such a media-rich environment that constantly reminds people of all available media use options can be a strong trigger of impulsive media use. In this...

(http://gamestudies.org/1702/articles/hartmann) How do violent videogames, as entertainment products, communicate violence in the context of warfare and in other settings? Also, why do users enjoy virtual violence? The present article introduces the Moral Disengagement in Violent Videogames model to tackle these important questions. The model resul...

This study examined the veracity of the common assumption that news coverage of epidemic outbreaks spawns heightened fears and risk perceptions. An online experiment with 1,324 participants investigated the interplay of the form of news coverage (factual/emotion-laden) and key aspects of actual risk (low/high vulnerability, low/high severity) on au...

Growing evidence reveals that people rely on heuristic cues when processing online information. The current research, by adopting a construal level theory approach, examined whether psychological distance cues within online messages influence message processing. According to construal level theory, spatial and hypothetical distances (i.e., probabil...

A between-subjects experiment examined selective exposure to films in an imagined self-control scenario, and if exposure would be systematically related to perceptions of the film content as challenging, enjoyable, and a should versus a want choice. Across 3 measures of selective exposure—using open-ended choice, closed-ended choice, and prospectiv...

Why is it so difficult to resist the desire to use social media? One possibility is that frequent social media users possess strong and spontaneous hedonic reactions to social media cues, which, in turn, makes it difficult to resist social media temptations. In two studies (total N = 200), we investigated less frequent and frequent social media use...

Journalistic role perceptions have been extensively studied in general contexts, but little is known as to how roles – or role prioritization – may shift across contexts, and professional characteristics. The aim of this study was gaining an understanding of journalists’ changing role perceptions in health crisis coverage, and moreover to examine p...

The current study is the first to longitudinally investigate the reciprocal relationship between online health information seeking and health anxiety, i.e., cyberchondria. Expectations were that health anxious individuals who go online to find health information, experience an increase in health anxiety, which in turn will reinforce online seeking....

Growing evidence from online credibility research reveals that online users rely on heuristic processes to evaluate the credibility of online information. The current paper, which is based on the construal level theory (CLT), proposes that congruency between the psychological distance of a stimulus and the way it is mentally construed can act as a...

Distress or anxiety about health is known as health anxiety. One of the most widely used scales to measure health anxiety is the Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI; Salkovskis, Rimes, Warwick, & Clark, 2002). The current study contributes to both the applicability and understanding of the SHAI by making 5 interrelated methodological contributions...

Real existierende Medienpersonen, etwa eine Fernsehmoderatorin, versuchen beim Zuschauer häufig das intuitive Gefühl auszulösen, sich in einer normalen sozialen Interaktion zu befinden. Gerade in personenzentrierten Unterhaltungsformaten, wie etwa Late-Night-Shows, ist diese Wirkung auf die Zuschauer von Bedeutung, da sie trotz aller Distanz inform...

The study of spatial presence is currently receiving increased attention in both media psychology and communication research. The present paper introduces the Spatial Presence Experience Scale (SPES), a short eight-item self-report measure. The SPES is derived from a process model of spatial presence (Wirth et al., 2007, Media Psychology, 9, 493–52...

The current study examined the relationship between online health information seeking and peoples’ feelings about their health situation, health care utilization, and satisfaction with health care. Moreover, we examined more closely the role of health anxiety in this relationship. This study is the first to investigate the effects of online health...

Parasocial interaction and parasocial relationship are often conflated conceptually and methodologically, leaving researchers unclear as to which concept is being tapped. This research clarifies these concepts and experimentally compares the most common measure of parasocial interaction, the Parasocial Interaction Scale (PSI-Scale), with a newer me...

Recent approaches in entertainment research highlight the distinction between hedonic (pleasure-seeking) and eudaimonic (truth-seeking) entertainment experiences. However, insights into the underlying processes that give rise to these different types of entertainment experiences are still scarce. This study examines the assumption that individuals’...

Throughout the last decades, research has generated a substantial body of theory about Spatial Presence experiences. This chapter reviews some of the most important existing theoretical explications. First, building on notions offered in literature, the core of the construct will be explicated: what exactly is meant by the term “Spatial Presence”?...

The chapter focuses on the measurement of spatial presence. Our aim is review existing measures of spatial presence and provide evaluative classifications of the quality and appropriateness of these measurement methods. In addition to existing methods, we also shortly discuss the appropriateness of measures that have not been extensively used so fa...

The full text is available here: http://www.dgpuk.de/meine-dgpuk/aus-dem-verein/info-broschuren/

Highly disconcerting at the time, in retrospective, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic looks like much ado about nothing. As a consequence, many accused the media of having created an artificial hype or hysteria around the new virus, thus contributing to unwarranted public fear. The current paper set out to examine the validity of such accusations. W...

Mechanisms of moral disengagement in violent video game play have recently received considerable attention among communication scholars. To date, however, no study has analyzed the prevalence of moral disengagement factors in violent video games. To fill this research gap, the present approach includes both a systematic literature review and a cont...

This article addresses ego depletion as a mechanism influencing media-based stress recovery processes. Using structural equation modeling, relationships between ego depletion, procrastination, guilt, enjoyment, vitality, and recovery experience were tested using data from an online survey (N = 471). Results suggest that ego depletion may increase t...

Research has consistently shown that males play violent video games more frequently than females, but factors underlying this gender gap have not been examined to date. This approach examines the assumption that males play violent video games more because they anticipate more enjoyment and less guilt from engaging in virtual violence than females....

This approach conceptualizes the hostile media effect (HME) as an intergroup phenomenon. Two empirical studies, one quasi-experimental and one experimental, examine the HME in the context of the abortion debate. Both studies show that ingroup identification and group status qualify the HME. Pro-choice and pro-life group members perceived an identic...

Throughout the last decades, research has generated a substantial body of theory about Spatial Presence experiences. This chapter reviews some of the most important existing theoretical explications. First, building on notions offered in literature, the core of the construct will be explicated: What exactly is meant by the term “Spatial Presence”?...

Systematische Skalenkonstruktionen tragen erheblich zum Erkenntnisfortschritt der Kommunikationswissenschaft bei, indem sie gültige und verlässliche Messinstrumente zur Verfügung tellen. Gleichzeitig wird die Durchführung gezielter Skalenkonstruktionen in der Kommunikationswissenschaft immer populärer, was als Zeichen der Reife und Professionalisie...

Media entertainment refers to users' enjoyment of media-induced sensations. This chapter argues that users feel entertained to the extent that media supports their adaptive tendencies to recreate and grow psychologically. Within the boundaries of their physiological regulation, users are believed to engage actively in cognitive, affective, and beha...

Media psychologists have long puzzled over how individuals can experience enjoyment from entertainment such as tragedies that often elicit profound feelings of sadness. The present research examines the idea that a focus on meaningful entertainment and affective responses identified as elevation may provide a framework for understanding many exampl...

The present study explores the role of intentions, habits, and addictive tendencies in people’s video game use. Although both habits and addictive tendencies may determine higher amounts of video game use, the present study examines whether the impact of habits and addictive tendencies on video game use may also be lower the less users intend to pl...

Linking back to , the present approach conceptualizes and empirically examines viewers' parasocial interaction experience with a TV performer. Causes and outcomes of parasocial interaction experience are examined. To this end, a new Experience of Parasocial Interaction (EPSI) scale is introduced. In a 2 (Bodily Addressing) x 2 (Verbal Addressing) b...

This chapter pursues the question whether virtual violence is a morally problematic behavior. Virtual violence is defined as any user behavior intended to do harm to perceived social agents who apparently try to avoid the harm-doing. This chapter reviews existing literature that suggests that users hurt themselves if they get engaged in virtual vio...

This article is one of the first to empirically explore the relationship between health anxiety and online health information search. Two studies investigate how health anxiety influences the use of the Internet for health information and how health anxious individuals respond to online health information. An exploratory survey study with 104 Dutch...

The present contribution comments Art Raney’s article on the role of morality in emotional reactions to media entertainment. It dwells on Raney’s distinction between pleasure-based versus appreciation-based media entertainment. On a normative level, Raney seems to favor appreciation-based media entertainment over pleasure-based entertainment, becau...

An experimental study tested the effects of positive and negative mood on the processing and acceptance of health recommendations about smoking in an online experiment. It was hypothesised that positive mood would provide smokers with the resources to systematically process self-relevant health recommendations. One hundred and twenty-seven particip...

This article extends current theorizing in media psychology on audience responses to cinema by examining individuals' perceptions of meaningfulness. Specifically, it presents the results of a study designed to expand upon research on psychological and subjective well-being to experiences and memories of films that are perceived as particularly mean...

Many avid gamers discount violent conduct in video games as morally insignificant as “it is just a game.” However, recent debates among users, regarding video games featuring inappropriate forms of virtual violence, suggest a more complex truth. Two experiments (N1 = 49, N2 = 80) examined users' guilt responses in order to explore the moral signifi...

What makes virtual violence enjoyable rather than aversive? Two 2×2 experiments tested the assumption that moral disengagement cues provided by a violent video game's narrative and game play lessen users' guilt and negative affect, which would otherwise undermine players' enjoyment of the game. Experiment 1 found that users' familiarity with the vi...

Sozialisation kann „als der Prozess der Entstehung und Entwicklung der Persönlichkeit in wechselseitiger Abhängigkeit von der gesellschaftlich vermittelten sozialen und materiellen Umwelt“ verstanden werden (Hurrelmann, 2002: 11). Das Streben nach einer eigenen Identität, einem „situationsübergreifende[n], unverwechselbare[n], eigenständige[n]“ Sel...

Eine ganze Reihe an empirischen Studien hat in der Vergangenheit gezeigt, dass die Suche nach Wettbewerb ein wesentliches Zuwendungsmotiv der Computerspielnutzung darstellt (u. a. Vorderer et al. 2006; Schlütz 2002; Williams & Clippinger 2002; Sherry et al. 2001).

Research on parasocial interactions (PSI) and parasocial relationships (PSR) refers back to a tradition of 50 years. However, research on both phenomena still suffers from overlapping definitions and resulting measurements that do not distinguish between PSI and PSR. The present study presents a post-exposure measurement tool (the PSI-Process Scale...

Interactive Storytelling is a major endeavour to develop new media which could offer a radically new user experience, with a potential to revolutionise digital entertainment. European research in Interactive Storytelling has played a leading role in the development of the field, and this creates a unique opportunity to strengthen its position even...

The present paper is a review of the role of individual factors in Spatial Presence. If Spatial Presence is a subjective mental phenomenon psychological factors must have an important role on it. Our review shows that, even though many authors claim about the need for a better understanding about this relation, empirical evidence is still very limi...

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and volition are important constructs in research on → selective exposure to media. Building on recent psychological theories of action (Gollwitzer 1990; Heckhausen & Kuhl 1985), media exposure results if a person develops an (intrinsically or extrinsically motivated) intention and invests sufficient volitional ef...

The present study examines determinants of suspense on viewers observing sports on television. As an explanatory framework, an integrated model is proposed, linking the concept of (positive and negative) parasocial relationships (PSR) to the concept of affective dispositions as used in the affective disposition theory of drama. In the context of th...