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Defining Immersion: Literature Review and Implications
for Research on Immersive Audiovisual Experiences
Sarvesh Agrawal, Ad`ele Simon, Søren Bech,
Klaus Bærentsen, and Søren Forchhammer
The use of the term ‘immersion’ to describe a multitude of varying experiences in
the absence of a definitional consensus has obfuscated and diluted the term. This paper
presents a non-exhaustive review of previous work on immersion on the basis of which a
definition of immersion is proposed: a state of deep mental involvement in which the subject
may experience disassociation from the awareness of the physical world due to a shift in
their attentional state. This definition is used to contrast and differentiate interchangeably
used terms such as presence and envelopment from immersion. Additionally, an overview
of prevailing measurement techniques, implications for research on immersive audiovisual
experiences, and avenues for future work are discussed briefly.
1 Introduction
The field of spatial audio has grown over the last decade, leading to a plethora of words
for describing new auditory experiences. Immersion is one of the terms which have gained
prominence and established their dominance in the vocabulary. It is often equated to realism,
naturalness, presence, and the sense of being surrounded, which has made immersion an
“excessively vague, all-inclusive concept” [
1
]. The ambiguity in the definition of immersion
for audio applications was recognized by Berg [
2
] who acknowledged the convoluted nature of
the concept and stated that “in addition to sound, other modalities contribute to immersion
and that immersion is something more complex than just a listener being surrounded by
any kind of sound(s).” Nevertheless, immersion continues to be confused with terms such as
envelopment [
3
] since the distinction between the terms and the underlying ideas are not well
documented. To conduct research on immersive audiovisual experiences, there is a need to
establish a clear definition of immersion.
Besides audio and acoustics, immersion has been studied in a variety of domains including
video games [
4
,
5
,
6
,
7
,
8
], virtual reality [
9
,
10
,
11
,
12
], music [
13
,
14
], film [
15
,
16
,
17
], and
literary works [
18
]. The use of immersion to describe a multitude of varying experiences and
the lack of consensus on the use of terminology can lead to a mismatch between the idea
to be investigated and the employed research methods [
19
]. Furthermore, the emergence of
virtual reality and the interchangeable use with terms such as presence, involvement, and
1
engagement creates a risk of confusion between concepts [
19
]. Thus, it can be challenging to
communicate and comprehend the idea to develop a better understanding of the subject. In
order to communicate effectively, it is critical to formalize the meaning of immersion. The
primary goal of this paper is to present an adaptable definition of immersion and highlight
the implications for research on immersive audiovisual experiences. An overview of previous
work on immersion is provided in Section 2, followed by a definition proposal in Section 3.
Interchangeably used terms are contrasted and differentiated from immersion in Sections 4
and 5. Section 6 outlines the subjective, behavioral, and physiological measures which have
been used in the literature for measuring immersion. Finally, the implications for immersive
audiovisual experience research are presented in Section 7.
2 Concept of Immersion
Although the exact origin of immersion’s conceptualization is not known, Murray [
20
] described
the concept as:
Immersion is a metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being
submerged in water. We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive
experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool: the sensation
of being surrounded by a completely other reality, as different as water is from air,
that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus ([20], p.99).
Murray expressed that immersion is not simply the outcome of the intensity of the sensory
stimulation. She proclaimed that a stirring narrative can deliver immersive experiences even
with a limited amount of sensory input such as in the case of books [
20
]. While Murray
describes immersion as a psychological concept which influences an individual’s attention,
it has been argued that immersion is purely an objective property of the technology or the
system which facilitates an experience [21, 22, 23].
Based on a review of previous studies, there are two major perspectives on immersion:
an individual’s psychological state and an objective property of a technology/system. An
overview of these perspectives is provided in the next sub-sections.
2.1 Immersion as an Individual’s Psychological State
Psychological immersion, similar to Witmer and Singer’s [
24
] idea of involvement, is understood
as a user’s psychological state when they are involved, absorbed, engaged, or engrossed [
25
].
In McMahan’s [
1
] words, “immersion means the player is caught up in the world of the
game’s story (the diegetic level);” she added, “[immersion] results from the user’s mental
absorption in the world.” McMahan de-emphasized the role of the system while focusing
on the individual and the narrative. Correspondingly, Thon [
26
] determined that, “what is
presented is more important than how it is presented [for a user to experience immersion].”
This idea is exemplified by the experience of reading books where the sensory input from the
stimulus is limited but the reader can construct scenarios in their mind such that they are
immersed in the act of reading.
2
In the context of video games, Sanders and Cairns [
4
] established that immersion results
from focusing one’s attention, thoughts, and goals towards the game. The notion of ‘shift of
attention’ is central to the concept of immersion according to Thon [
26
], who stated that it
is the shift of attention along with the construction of mental representation in the brain
which leads to an immersive experience. Brown and Cairns [
5
] discovered that immersion
is the degree to which a user is involved with a game. They suggested that the degree of
involvement varies with time and is controlled by barriers which can be cleared through
human activity such as concentration.
The three recognized reasons which can lead (independently or along with other reasons)
to psychological immersion are the subjective sense of being surrounded or experiencing
multisensory stimulation, absorption in the narrative or the depiction of the narrative, and
absorption when facing strategic or tactical challenges. These are described in the following
paragraphs.
2.1.1 Subjective Sense of Being Surrounded or Experiencing Multisensory Stimulation
One of the prevalent conceptualizations of immersion is the sense of being surrounded or
experiencing multisensory stimulation. Biocca and Delaney [
27
] dubbed this perceptual
immersion: the extent of submersion of the user’s perceptual system in the environment. It
is believed that perceptual immersion can be measured objectively by “counting the number
of the user’s senses that are provided with input and the degree to which inputs from the
physical environment are shut out” [
28
]. McMahan [
1
] stated that perceptual immersion can
be achieved by blocking the external world and constraining the user’s perception to the
presented stimulus.
The role of sensory information in immersive gaming experiences was recognized by Ermi
and M¨ayr¨a [
29
] for the development of a gameplay experience model (sensory, challenge-based,
and imaginative immersion model or SCI model). The authors called it sensory immersion :
an overpowering of the sensory information from the real environment through large screens
and powerful sounds to focus the user entirely on the stimulus. In their study on presence,
Witmer and Singer [
24
] made the distinction between immersion and involvement such that
the former is the subjective experience of being enveloped in an interactive environment and
the latter is a psychological state which results from directing attention to the stimulus.
It may appear that what many researchers call perceptual or sensory immersion is
a completely different perspective on immersion compared to psychological immersion.
Nevertheless, it is instead a facilitator for psychological immersion since overpowering sensory
information or blocking the stimuli from the immediate environment does not guarantee
psychological immersion but can prevent “an exogenous shift of attention” [
26
] away from
the activity; and consequently, influence psychological immersion. This can explain why the
current trend for creating immersive audiovisual experiences is largely based on this idea of
eliciting immersion (e.g. virtual reality, interactive audiovisual experiences, spatial audio,
etc.).
3
2.1.2 Absorption in the Narrative or the Depiction of the Narrative
A number of studies draw attention to the importance of the narrative for immersive
experiences. Adam and Rollings [
6
] conceptualized immersion in a story as “the feeling of
being inside a story, completely involved and accepting the world and events of the story as
real.” In the context of video games, Ermi and M¨ayr¨a [
29
] acknowledged the importance of
the story elements which can mentally absorb the player for experiencing immersion. The two
authors called this imaginative immersion on the premise that the player has an opportunity
to exercise their imagination based on the narrative of the game. It was argued by Arsenault
[
30
] that imaginative immersion should be modified to fictional immersion since one does
not need to exercise their imagination to be immersed in the story. The different views
on narrative immersion were summed up by Thon [
26
]: “narrative immersion refers to the
player’s shift of attention to the unfolding of the story of the game and the characters therein
as well as to the construction of a situation model representing not only the various characters
and narrative events, but also the fictional game world as a whole.”
Ryan [
18
] categorized narrative immersion into spatial, temporal, and emotional immersion.
Spatial immersion is experienced when an individual has a strong sense of space and enjoys the
act of exploration. Temporal immersion: focused attention to the unfolding story [
26
], results
from an individual’s curiosity to know what happens next. Finally, emotional immersion
occurs due to an individual’s emotional attachment with the characters or the story [
18
].
It is strongest when an individual can relate to the presented situation and is emotionally
invested in the story or the characters.
2.1.3 Absorption when Facing Strategic and/or Tactical Challenges
The influence of challenges on the experience of immersiveness is a closely examined topic
since a considerable amount of immersion research is focused on video games. Ermi and
M¨ayr¨a [
29
] explained immersion in response to challenges as mental absorption which is
reached due to a balance between challenges and abilities. They asserted that challenges can
be related to strategic planning or thinking as well as the motor skills. Adam and Rollings
[
6
] classified immersion due to challenges as strategic immersion and tactical immersion. The
former can be observed when a player is absorbed in strategizing, calculating, and making
choices while tactical immersion refers to the immersion which is encountered when one is
completely attentive to the task on hand due to a stream of demands for quick reactions (e.g.
playing video games which require swift tactile movements).
Arsenault [
30
] stated that one does not have to be challenged in order to be immersed.
He proposed to modify challenge-based immersion to systematic immersion: it occurs when
a player accepts the game’s system (rules, laws, etc.) while rejecting the laws of physics
as observed in the real world. Arsenault’s idea of systematic immersion is applicable to
non-participatory activities
1
such as watching fictional movies where one isn’t necessarily
challenged by the content and may accept the existence of magic, for example.
In contrast to the idea of immersion being an individual’s psychological state, an alternative
outlook on immersion is the conception of immersion being an objective property of the
1
In this paper, non-participatory activity refers to an activity in which the user input or feedback does
not influence or alter the outcome of the activity such as in a traditional movie-screening.
4
system/technology which facilitates an experience. This perspective is discussed below.
2.2 Immersion as an Objective Property of a System/Technology
Proponents of this view believe that immersion is a set of characteristics of a system which
can be objectively determined and quantified. In 2003, Slater [22] expressed the following:
Let’s reserve the term “immersion” to stand simply for what the technology
delivers from an objective point of view. The more the system delivers displays
(in all sensory modalities) and tracking that preserves fidelity in relation to their
equivalent real-world sensory modalities, the more that is “immersive.”
Slater’s description implies that increasing the number of channels and loudspeakers
augments immersiveness, irrespective of the content, context, and individual preferences.
Evidently, a shortcoming of this conceptualization is that it does not account for perceptual
limits, content, context, and individual factors such as preference and mood. Slater rejects
the notion that immersion is a subjective experience. It is important to mention that the
conviction of immersion being an objective property of a system/technology is held by a
small minority in the literature. The term system immersion [
31
] can be used to distinguish
this view on immersion from the others.
The concepts reviewed in this section are summarized in Figure 1. A definition of
immersion is proposed in the next section based on the presented literature review.
Figure 1: Summary of the literature review presented in this paper. Although the subjective
sense of being surrounded or experiencing multisensory stimulation, absorption in the narrative
or the depiction of the narrative, and absorption when facing strategic and/or tactical
challenges are seen as different perspectives on immersion, they are viewed as reasons which
can lead to psychological immersion in this paper. Refer to Section 3 for the proposed
definition of immersion from a psychological standpoint.
5
3 Proposed Definition
The motivation for studying immersion is to recognize the influencing factors so that they may
be varied to augment experiences. Hence, it is crucial to establish a definition of immersion
on the basis of which the underlying phenomenon can be investigated. In this section, an
adaptable definition of immersion is proposed and illustrated using immersive potential and
immersive tendency.
The conceptualization of immersion being an objective property of the system may not
always lead to a perceptual difference, rendering it insignificant for the goal of augmenting
experiences. Additionally, Slater’s conception of immersion [
21
,
22
] relies on the availability
of an external system because it is highly focused on virtual reality applications, restricting
the generalizability of the concept. The role of the individual is of paramount importance
since experiences are, by their very nature, highly subjective. Hence, the notion of immersion
being a property of a system/technology can be rejected. Taking into account the wide range
of fields where immersion is applied, the following definition is proposed:
Immersion is a phenomenon experienced by an individual when they are in a state
of deep mental involvement in which their cognitive processes (with or without
sensory stimulation) cause a shift in their attentional state such that one may
experience disassociation from the awareness of the physical world.
Based on this definition, immersion is a mental state which is why sensory stimulation
is not required to experience immersion (for example, daydreaming can be an immersive
experience). It is important to consider all sensory modalities for determining immersion
since the presented stimuli may stimulate only a few senses but humans continue to receive
input from all the senses which can influence immersion. Therefore, all the factors which
can either facilitate or disrupt immersion must be considered. It is unreasonable to merely
examine the stimulus or the system to determine immersion. While the system and the
content can certainly affect immersion, they are not immersive independent of the subject.
The idea of immersive potential can add clarity to the above explanation:
Immersive potential: The potential of a system or content to elicit immersion.
For a given piece of content presented by a system which does not change, the immersive
potential remains constant. It is important to note that the immersive potential does not
simply increase with the technical specification of the system. Instead, it depends on its
ability to elicit immersion. The immersive potential is barred by the human perceptual
limits and the changes to a system must lead to a discernible perceptual change to alter its
immersive potential.
In addition to the system and the content, immersion also depends on the state of the
individual at the moment in time, as well as their immersive tendency, which is defined as
follows:
Immersive tendency [24]: An individual’s predisposition to experience immersion.
It can be assumed that the immersive tendency of an individual remains constant during
the course of an experiment which is conducted over a short duration of time
2
. The immersive
2
Immersive tendency can change over time due to training, learning, experience, changes in personality,
etc. Since these factors do not normally vary within a short duration of time (e.g. over the course of a few
days), these can be assumed to be constant for conducting experiments.
6
tendency can be determined with the help of questionnaires [
24
,
32
] to learn if certain
individuals can get immersed relatively easily compared to others.
The four factors which can influence immersion are: 1) the system (physical properties of
the reproduction system and the content), 2) narrative (content), 3) environment (physical
environment and the contextual conditions), and 4) individual factors (affective states, mood,
preference, skills, previous knowledge, expertise, goals, motivation, etc.). These are similar to
those which affect the quality of experience (QoE) [
33
] since immersion is an experience which
is dependent on an individual’s cognitive state and preference for the content. Nonetheless,
the concepts of QoE and immersive experiences should not be confused. An experience must
elicit immersion to qualify as an immersive experience while the QoE, theoretically, can be
assessed for any experience.
4 Other Cognitive Concepts
As noted previously, immersion is often used interchangeably with presence, flow, and
transportation. In this section, these different concepts are weighed and distinguished from
immersion on the basis of the proposed definition.
4.1 Presence
The term presence has been a crucial research topic in video game and virtual reality studies
since the 90s and has been used to describe experiential phenomena in a range of diverse
realms such as communication, engineering, psychology, and philosophy [
19
]. Similar to
immersion, there are contradicting opinions regarding the definition of the term and the
suitable methods to measure and quantify presence remain debatable.
Presence has been defined as “the psychological sense of being in a virtual environment;”
[
23
] “[the] extent to which a person’s cognitive and perceptual systems are tricked into
believing they are somewhere other than their physical location;” [
34
] and the feeling of being
in the game [
5
,
35
,
36
,
37
,
38
,
39
]. This is evidence that the term presence refers to the sense
of being present in an environment which is not purely the physical environment around us.
Jennett et al. [
7
] stated that a double disassociation exists between immersion and
presence. For instance, one can be immersed when listening to electronic music but may
not feel present due to a lack of spatial cues in the content, limited spatial fidelity of the
reproduction system, etc. On the other hand, playback over headphones of a binaural
recording of restaurant ambience can make one feel as if they are present at the restaurant
but such a scenario would most likely fail to immerse the listener due to the rendering system
and the content’s low immersive potential. This double disassociation can also be observed in
participatory activities such as the one that Jennett et al. [
7
] illustrated through the example
of playing Tetris (an abstract game) on a 2D screen. It is unlikely that the player will feel
present in an environment where there are blocks falling around them; however, the player
can still be immersed in the activity. Even so, when asked to perform a boring task in a
virtual simulation, one can feel present in the environment but not be mentally involved;
and thus, immersion will be absent. It is worth noting that immersion and presence can be
7
experienced simultaneously such as when listening to a highly spacious recording of one’s
favorite classical music piece or playing an engaging game in virtual reality.
4.2 Transportation
Transportation is a term which is used when studying narrative worlds to describe the feeling
which is commonly described as being lost in the story. It has been defined as “immersion
or absorption into a narrative world” [
40
] and as a “state of detachment from the world of
origin” [
41
]. Discussions of transportation are similar to those of immersion: the idea of
being in a different world, through media (here, any form of narrative) and experiencing
disassociation from the awareness of the world of origin. Although an attempt has been made
to spot subtle differences between the concepts of immersion and transportation [
41
], there is
an apparent lack of adequate and conclusive evidence. Consequently, transportation can be
viewed as immersion which is fundamentally focused on the narrative.
4.3 Flow
The concept of flow was pioneered by Csikszentmihalyi who defined flow as “the state in
which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience
itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it”
[
42
]. He identified the balance between ability and challenge, concentration/attention, clear
goals, immediate feedback, escape from everyday life, sense of personal control (lack of a
sense of worry), loss of self-consciousness, and altered sense of time as the eight components
of flow [
42
]. Nevertheless, the minimum requirements which qualify an experience as a flow
experience have not been established [
43
]. The descriptions, causes, and symptoms of a
flow experience are inconsistent in the literature and should be approached with caution. In
addition, some of the components such as the balance between ability and perceived challenge
are open to interpretation, causing trouble in the qualification of experiences.
The distinction between flow and immersion was challenged by Michailidis et al. [
39
] who
suggested that there is a lack of evidence to conclude that the two concepts are dissimilar.
However, even though there is an overlap between the two concepts, they should not be
considered synonymous since flow is an “all-or-nothing” experience [
44
] while immersion
may be a graded experience [
5
]. Flow is an extreme experience [
4
,
7
,
45
] which limits it
to optimal, positive experiences. Additionally, the absence of key components of flow (e.g.
balance between ability and challenge, clear goals, and immediate feedback) in activities such
as watching a movie or listening to music essentially disqualifies passive activities as flow
experiences. Naturally, a piece of music or a movie can certainly engage the user and induce
immersion; exemplifying that flow and immersion are independent ideas.
5 Distinction Between Envelopment and Immersion
Envelopment is a widely studied topic in concert hall acoustics. Nonetheless, with the growing
popularity of spatial audio, envelopment is being used in a much broader sense. Rumsey
[
46
] classified envelopment as environmental envelopment and source-related envelopment.
8
Environmental envelopment, also known as listener envelopment (LEV), is the feeling of
being surrounded by the reverberant sound field while source-related envelopment can be
defined as “envelopment by one or more dry or direct foreground sound sources” [
46
]. LEV
is primarily dependent on late arriving reflections [
47
] while source-related envelopment can
be experienced when sounds are placed around the listener [48].
Francombe et al. [
3
] found that 90 percent of the participants felt that envelopment
and immersion were synonymous in an experiment conducted for determining the attributes
of different spatial audio reproduction methods. This can be explained by the use of
the analogy: ‘experience of swimming underwater,’ for describing both, immersion and
envelopment. Although the differences between these terms are often considered to be subtle,
there is a noteworthy distinction: envelopment is perceptual whereas immersion is cognitive.
Furthermore, a double disassociation exists between immersion and envelopment. For instance,
monophonic reproduction of one’s preferred music can deliver an immersive experience but
would not be reported as being enveloping. In contrast, reproduction over headphones of a
binaural recording of restaurant ambience can be perceived to be enveloping but will likely
fail to immerse the listener due to a lack of engaging narrative and low immersive potential.
Hence, one can be immersed when envelopment is absent and vice versa. It is important to
note that even though immersion and envelopment are distinct ideas, they may be correlated.
Following the proposed definition and outlining the differences between the interchangeably
used terms and immersion, the succeeding section presents an overview of experimental
paradigms for measuring immersion. These methods include subjective (questionnaires) and
physical and behavioral measurement methods.
6 Measuring Immersion
The challenge with measuring immersion is twofold: the absence of a definitional consensus
and a lack of knowledge regarding the causes and the attributes of immersion. The fragile
nature of immersion [20] also adds to the complexity of measuring immersion.
The following sub-sections provide an overview of experimental paradigms and discuss
their advantages and limitations for measuring immersion. Please note that the definition of
the terms immersion and presence may differ from those determined earlier in Sections 3 and
4.1 due to a lack of definitional consensus.
6.1 Questionnaires
Questionnaires developed for measuring presence [
24
,
25
,
49
,
50
,
51
], engagement [
35
,
52
],
and transportation [
40
] with immersion as a factor under investigation can be adapted
for measuring immersion. The multidimensionality of the concept, nonetheless, varies
the particular dimension (narrative, system, etc.) examined by these questionnaires (see
[
25
,
53
,
54
]). In addition, many of the questionnaires are context-specific (video games, virtual
reality, audiovisual, books, etc.) and cannot be adapted directly. For instance, questionnaires
based on transportation or narrative engagement principally focus on the narrative of the
content while those for video games [
7
,
35
,
53
,
55
] are aimed at interactive experiences. To
navigate this issue, Lessiter et al. [
51
] developed the Independent Television Commission
9
Sense of Presence Inventory (ITC-SOPI) which is independent of the media system and
the content properties; similar in concept to the Measurement, Effects, Conditions Spatial
Presence Questionnaire (MEC-SPQ) proposed by Vorderer et al. [50].
Post-experience questionnaires are attractive as they do not interfere with the experience
and are easy for the subjects to use. Notwithstanding, such measurements can lead to
inaccurate recall and recency effect [
56
]. The measurement of temporal variation of immersion
is also barred by the post-experience nature of the method. Ijsselsteijn et al. [
57
] attempted
to measure the variation of presence over time using a slider which can potentially disrupt the
sense of presence by including elements from the real environment in the virtual experience;
and hence, lead to inaccurate measurements.
6.2 Physiological and Behavioral Measures
Physiological and behavioral measures provide an objective and non-invasive way to measure
immersion. Results from such measurements must be interpreted prudently as the relationship
between the concepts (immersion, presence, etc.) and their suspected attributes (spatial and
temporal disassociation, altered emotional state, etc.) are not well-established.
A number of studies have suspected a lack of awareness of the non-mediated world to
be one of the fundamental attributes of immersion [
26
,
40
,
58
] which can be investigated
through various behavioral and physiological methods. On the behavioral level, secondary
task reaction time (STRT) [
59
,
60
,
61
] can be used to measure attention to the non-mediated
world. The assumption for immersion research is that if the cognitive resources are primarily
allocated to the mediated experience, less attention would be available for other tasks; thus,
the reaction time for the secondary tasks will be longer. However, Klimmt et al. [
59
] reported
a weak negative correlation between attentional measures and the STRT responses which
contradicts the assumption stated above.
On the physiological level, Haffegee and Barrow [
62
] and Cox et al. [
63
] have recommended
eye tracking to investigate the attentional attributes. Jennett et al. [
7
] found different fixation
patterns between immersive and non-immersive conditions which was supported by Wissmath
et al. [
64
]. Nevertheless, the results of eye-tracking measures on immersion are sparse and
further research is required to understand the underlying relationship.
A lack of awareness of the non-mediated world can also be viewed as an alteration of time
perception [
5
,
7
,
65
]; however, the links between immersive experiences and time perception
are unclear [5].
Brain responses have been proposed to measure immersion in a non-invasive manner.
Electroencephalography (EEG test) has been conducted to measure event-related potential
[
66
] and brain oscillations [
67
] as a measure of immersion. Attempts have also been made
to measure presence with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) [
68
,
69
,
70
] and
EEG [
71
,
72
]. Michailidis et al. [
39
] found that flow and immersion may share some neural
mechanisms different from the ones associated with presence based on their review of flow,
immersion, and presence.
It is believed that immersion can also be investigated via emotions [
7
,
40
,
52
,
53
], but the
results obtained through studies based on electro-dermal activity (EDA) [73, 74, 75] do not
provide evident conclusions.
10
Thus, a number of physiological and behavioral measures can be explored to measure
immersion physically and in non-invasive ways. Nevertheless, these methods should be used
carefully due to the lack of evidence confirming the links between the concepts to be assessed
and the measured attribute(s).
7 Implications and Future Work
The literature review illustrates that there is a difference of opinion among researchers
which must be resolved to develop a common understanding of the term across disciplines.
Even though absorption in the narrative, absorption when facing intellectual and/or tactical
challenges, and the sense of being enveloped have been viewed as reasons which lead to
psychological immersion in this paper, additional research is required to analyze if the
phenomena they cause warrant the classification of psychological immersion.
Studying the immersive potential of a system is of great interest to researchers and
engineers. Asp¨ock et al. [
76
] approached immersion as the sense of being surrounded/enveloped
to investigate the immersion of spatial audio reproduction systems. They used the questionnaire
developed by Colsman et al. [
77
] which assumes attribution (causality), attention, room
perception, and source perception to be the four key aspects which influence immersion.
These factors are different from the factors identified in Section 3 due to a difference in the
definition of immersion. An apparent shortcoming of such an approach is that there is a risk of
measuring the presumed aspects rather than immersion, due to a lack of information regarding
the links between them. The measured phenomenon may be different from immersion since
the experience is not assessed to verify its qualification as an immersive experience.
Eaton and Lee [
78
] surveyed audio professionals to identify the quantifying factors for
auditory immersion in VR from a set of perceptual auditory factors (envelopment, clarity,
localization, etc.) and technical features (latency, headphone equalization, etc.). They
concluded that all of the listed factors in the survey are important for auditory immersion.
The prevailing issue with such a study is that it perpetuates the general understanding of the
term rather than assessing the underlying framework. We assert that although the system
can influence immersion, it is not the determining factor for immersion.
In addition to the system, the content plays an important role in the experience of
immersion. It should not be assumed that a particular stimulus will immerse all the subjects
under consideration. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that a subject will experience
immersion in every trial for a given stimulus since every trial modifies the subject’s knowledge
and expectations of the stimulus. Such modifications could potentially lead to bias, influencing
the likelihood of a subject experiencing immersion when a stimulus is repeated. Given the
lack of understanding regarding the experience of immersion when a stimulus is repeated, it
is important that the subjects evaluate a stimulus only once in an experiment until further
research is conducted. Subjects’ familiarity with the content should also be documented and
accounted for in the analysis. Hence, to achieve the desired statistical power, it is important
to have a sufficient number of subjects and stimuli for assessment since repetitions cannot be
performed.
Considering the limited knowledge regarding the temporal nature of immersion and the
time required for a subject to experience immersion, it is suspected that the subjects would
11
require several minutes to reach the state of immersion [
79
]. In addition, the audiovisual
excerpts used as stimuli must be standalone pieces which do not require prior knowledge
about the presented narrative.
Immersion is largely dependent on the immersive tendency, the state of an individual
at the time of an experience, and the significance of the content to the subject. While
immersive tendency can be gauged by questionnaires, the fluctuating factors such as mood,
preference, and affective states are rather difficult to assess. The significance of the content
to an individual is largely unquantifiable, adding to the complexity of assessing an immersive
experience.
The major challenge for quantifying immersion is the development of suitable measurement
methods. Since not all experiences are immersive, future work should aim to first separate
immersive experiences from non-immersive experiences. This step is critical to ensure
that immersion was elicited during the assessed experience in order to avoid erroneous
measurements. The determination of immersive experiences can be followed by discerning
whether immersion is a bipolar or a graded experience. Although it has been suggested that
immersion is a graded experience for participatory activities [
5
], there is insufficient evidence
to conclude the same for non-participatory activities. The nature of immersion will dictate if
the experiences can be evaluated on a nominal or interval scale.
Subsequently, immersion could be assessed for a variety of audiovisual experiences including
virtual reality. Future work should investigate the influence of physical parameters of the
system (e.g. number of channels in the audio rendering system) on the immersive audiovisual
experience. Understanding the influence of the factors affecting immersion can be helpful in
accomplishing the goal of augmenting experiences for the users.
8 Summary
In this paper, a non-exhaustive review of literature on immersion has been presented, on the
basis of which the descriptions of immersion have been categorized into two paradigms: an
individual’s psychological state and the objective property of the technology or the system
which facilitates an experience. The authors of this paper emphasize that immersion is
a cognitive construct on the basis of which an adaptable definition of immersion from a
psychological perspective has been proposed in Section 3.
The terms immersive potential and immersive tendency are suggested to develop the
foundation for conducting experiments and quantifying immersion. Based on the proposed
definition, immersion is contrasted with presence, transportation, flow, and envelopment to
signify the underlying differences between the ideas. The system, content, environment, and
individual factors are identified as the four factors which can influence immersion.
The overview of the subjective and objective measurement techniques illustrates the
scarcity of reliable and robust methods for measuring immersion, suggesting a clear need for
additional research. To study immersive experiences, it is important to understand each of the
four factors which can influence immersion (the system, narrative, environment, individual
factors) and their complex interaction. Approaching immersion as one complete experience
rather than merely investigating the system or the stimuli is of paramount importance.
Identification of the attributes and causes of immersion will facilitate the study of immersion,
12
and eventually, create new avenues for augmenting experiences.
9 Acknowledgement
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and
innovation programme under the Marie Sk lodowska-Curie grant agreement No.765911. The
authors would like to thank the Bang & Olufsen research group for their valuable time and
input.
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