CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR

Volume 3, Number 3, 2000Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

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

R.M. BAÑOS, Ph.D.,1 C. BOTELLA, Ph.D.,2 A. GARCIA-PALACIOS, Ph.D.,2 H. VILLA,2

C. PERPIÑA, Ph.D.,2 and M. ALCAÑIZ, Ph.D.3

ABSTRACT

Presence and reality judgment are two important variables to take into account in the virtualreality field. So far, scientific literature has paid (and pays) attention to the construct of pres-ence, 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 sub-sumed into the concept of presence. Not much effort has been dedicated to test whether ornot both constructs refer to the same domain. Most likely there are relationships betweenboth variables, but it is also possible that they have differentiated domains. The aim of thepresent work is to design a self-report measure that assesses both constructs, and to carry outthe validation process with Spanish and North American samples.

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INTRODUCTION

THE INITIAL AND MOST POPULAR definitions ofvirtual reality (VR) made reference to a par-

ticular technological system and were based ona hardware instantiation. According to Steuer,1

understanding VR in terms of technologicalhardware is insufficient and unacceptable, es-pecially because such a definition “fails to pro-vide a conceptual framework from which tomake regulatory decisions” (p. 73). As Steuerstates, it can be more useful to define VR as aparticular type of human experience, ratherthan a collection of machines. But the questionsare: Which particular kind of experience? Whatdefines this particular experience? Steuer1

points out that the key to defining VR is theconcept of presence, and he proposes that: “A

VR is defined as a real or simulated environ-ment in which a perceiver experiences tele-presence” (p. 76).

Presence has been defined as “the experiencea person has when in a virtual environment of‘being there’” (Rizzo, Wiederhold and Buck-walter,2 p. 30) or “the subjective experience ofbeing in one place or environment, even whenyou are physically located in another” (Witmerand Singer,3 p. 225). As Heeter4 points out,presence is the process of discerning and vali-dating the existence of self in the natural world,a process humans have engaged in since birth.A sense of presence in a virtual environmentderives from feeling as if you existed within butas a separate entity from a virtual world thatalso exists.4

However, within the VR arena, is it enough

1Universitat de València, Spain.2Universitat Jaume I de Castellón, Spain.3Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain.

to focus the questions only in presence? Are weforgetting to pay attention to other importantaspects? Wouldn’t it be necessary to speak ofreality as well? We think that relating presenceand reality judgement is basic. In fact, there aretwo very important questions in this context:How do we convince the users as being in thevirtual world? How do we convince them thatsuch a world exists?

So far, scientific literature has paid (andpays) attention only to the construct of pres-ence, and most of the authors point out that theconcept of presence is one of the important fea-tures of a virtual environment.2,5 We also thinkthat presence is a key factor to understand VR,especially in the case of a remote environmentwhere presence (or telepresence) is a centraland very relevant question. But in these cases,that is, for the teleoperators systems, despitethe fact that the user is absent, he or she doesnot question the reality of what is happening,but feels as if he or she were in that spot, inthat remote location.

Is it the same case for the virtual environ-ments that are being developed for the treat-ment of psychological problems? Focusingonly in the concept of presence could be limit-ing and, therefore, the question should bebroader: Which aspects contribute to create aperson’s reality judgement at any given mo-ment? That is, to what extent does a person feelthat he/she is in the environment? To what ex-tent is this experience real?

It is necessary to emphasize that when weare speaking about reality judgement, about at-tributing reality to our experiences, we do notmean the sensorial or pictorial realism. We arenot talking of realism but of reality. And we arenot talking either of “information reality,”6 (i.e.,the reality of the incoming messages) exclu-sively. In sum, we are not asking why peoplebelieve the message, as it often the questionsurrounding the radio broadcast of “War of theWorlds.”

We are aware that defining reality is a verycomplex task. It is a debate at least as old asrecorded philosophy,6 and it is absolutely be-yond the scope of our expertise. We simplythink of the VR experiences experienced in thescope of mental health. In this sense, we referbasically to the concept of “willing suspension

of disbelief”7 or the willingness to interpret vir-tual experiences as if they were veridical. Thisphenomenon is seen in the VR applications tomental health, where the user will feel and livein the virtual environment. It is much like theVR games; “They may to some extent simulateevents in nature or events in society, but this isnot why they are played. They are played be-cause they create their own reality, which par-ticipants find enforcing”8 (p. 25). Games workonly if people feel that they are real. We thinkthat the VR in mental health works in part be-cause participants feel that the environment isreal.

But, is asking about reality judgement thesame as asking about presence? Both conceptsare very close and related but keep being dif-ferent. Assigning reality judgements is not thesame as feeling that one is present. Those aretwo problems that yield two different possibil-ities. It is possible to think of experiences towhich individuals assign reality judgement butin which they do not feel present, as happenswhen watching and listening to news on TV. Itis also possible to think of experiences in whichindividuals feel themselves to be very present,but they do not assign these experiences anyreality judgment, as when playing a computeradventure. In the same way, not all the appli-cations need both components in the same ex-tent. For example, in virtual environments de-signed to give an active distraction to burnedpatients, a high degree of presence is necessary,but a high degree of reality judgement may notbe necessary. However, in virtual environ-ments designed to treat phobias both variablescould be necessary. Which is the main interestwhen a VR scenario is designed and applied tothe treatment of, for instance, phobias? The fo-cus lies in modifying some of the phobic per-sons’ experiences, and thus it is necessary tocreate credible experiences that the person as-sumes as theirs. That is why both aspects areimportant.

But, which factors of VR contribute to pres-ence and reality judgment? According to Wit-mer and Singer3 and Rizzo et al.,2 two factorsare necessary to experience presence: involve-ment and immersion. Involvement has beendefined by Witmer and Singer3 as “a psycho-logical state experienced as a consequence of

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focusing one’s energy and attention on a co-herent set of stimuli or meaningfully related ac-tivities and events” (p. 227). It seems to be afunction of the user’s internal characteristics,depending on variables such as interest andmotivation. This factor depends on the degreeof meaning and significance that the user at-taches to the activity. Immersion has been de-fined as “a psychological state characterized byperceiving oneself to be enveloped by, in-cluded in, and interacting with an environmentthat provides a continuous stream of stimuliand experiences”3 (p. 227). According to Wit-mer and Singer, immersion is not an objectivedescription of the VR technology, but is some-thing the individual experiences.

Regarding reality judgement, there are alsoseveral attempts to answer to the question ofhow people decide what is real. Brickman8 pro-posed that an experience is considered real to the extent that it holds internal and externalcorrespondence. Internal correspondence re-fers to the correspondence of behavior withfeelings. That is, a situation is considered real,in part, when there is a good deal of emotionin the situation. External correspondencemeans that behavior corresponds with conse-quences. That is, the person’s behavior deter-mines and corresponds to important conse-quences in the world. Coming back to thesimile of game, players feel the game to be realwhen they feel that their behavior has sufficientconsequences for themselves or for others andwhen the game allows them sufficient freedomto express their feelings.8 It is possible to makea parallelism among all these factors. Intu-itively, it seems that internal correspondence ismore related to involvement, whereas externalcorrespondence is more related to immersion,especially to those aspects of interaction in-cluded in the concept of immersion as Witmerand Singer3 defined it. Such a parallelismpoints out once more the important relation-ships between both concepts, presence and re-ality judgement.

As it has been referred to previously, mostefforts of researchers in the VR field have beendevoted preferentially to presence more thanreality judgement, as is obvious by the fact thatthe assessment instruments developed focusexclusively on the assessment of presence.

These questionnaires may include items on re-ality judgement, but that is not their goal. Theaim of the present work is to design a self-re-port measure that assesses both constructs, andto carry out the validation process in Spanishand North American samples.

METHOD

Subjects

Participants for the study were 124 under-graduate students of different technical and artmajors: 44.1% males (N 5 55) and 55.9% fe-males (N 5 69), whose ages ranged from 17 to48 years, with a mean of 21.17 years (SD 53.52). Ninety-seven participants came from theUniversidad de Castellón, in Spain, and 27from the University of Washington (Seattle), inthe United States.

Measures

The Reality Judgement and Presence Ques-tionnaire was designed in order to assess pres-ence and reality judgement (Appendix 1).Items were based on other questionnaires pre-sent in the literature3,9 and on a review of theliterature concerning these concepts, which al-lowed us to extract more items from the defi-nitions of presence and reality judgement. Thefinal result was a 77-item questionnaire in Lik-ert scale format ranging from 0 (“not at all) to10 (absolutely), scanning the following as-pects:

� 14 items related to the concept of realityjudgement (items 2, 5, 7, 16, 18, 25, 32, 37,38, 39, 71, 72, 73, and 74).

� 17 items related to the concept of presence(items 9, 17, 19, 20, 29, 30, 34, 35, 45, 46, 55,56, 57, 70, 75, 76, and 77).

� 14 items related to emotional involvement(items 13, 26, 27, 28, 33, 49, 62, 63, 64, 65,66, 67, 68, and 69).

� 6 items related to interaction, an importantcharacteristic of immersion as Witmer andSinger3 defined it (items 21, 36, 40, 44, 54,and 60).

� 4 items about control, another importantcharacteristic of immersion, as Witmer

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and Singer3 defined it (items 50, 52, and58).

� 4 items related to attention, an importantfactor that determines presence accordingto Witmer and Singer3 and Fontaine.10 Thecontent of these items are more related toa state named “flow” by Fontaine, includ-ing concentration, attention to a limitedfield of stimuli, and loss of a sense of thepass of time (items 47, 48, 59, and 61).

� 7 items related to realism, both perceptualand interactive, including perceptual clar-ity and natural modes of interaction (items1, 4, 11, 31, 41, 42, and 43).

� 3 items about perceptual congruence andperceptual continuity (items 10, 24, and51).

� 8 items about expectations and the possi-bility of anticipation and prediction in thevirtual environment (items 3, 6, 8, 12, 14,15, 22 and 23).

The questionnaire was originally written inSpanish. The translation process was as fol-lows: (a) It was translated into English by abilingual American translator; and (b) it wastranslated back into Spanish by six Spanish per-sons, two of them being English translators,with the purpose of approving of the transla-tion and verifying that it adjusted to the origi-nal version.

Procedure

Participants were told that the study had thepurpose of measuring people’s reactions to theexperience of being immersed in VR. Theywere immersed with the guidance of the ex-perimenter for 15 minutes in one of three dif-ferent environments. After the immersion, par-ticipants fulfilled the questionnaires and theexperiment finished. Total time was approxi-mately 30 minutes for each individual.

Because of disposability of the environments,Spanish participants were immersed in claus-trophobic11 or body image scenarios,12 and allthe American participants were immersed in aspider scenario.13

Claustrophobic scenarios. The first scenariowas a room where participants could walk and

manipulate (open and close) windows anddoors. From this scenario participants enteredinto the second room that consisted of a smallerroom where they could walk, open and closethe door, and move one of the walls to narrowthe size of the room.

Body image scenarios. These scenarios con-sisted of six-settings. The first scenario was forlearning and accommodation purposes. Thesecond consisted of a kitchen with a virtual bal-ance in it. Setting three was an exhibition roomwith several posters showing different bodybuilds. Settings four and six consisted of sev-eral virtual mirrors. The user could eat, weighhimself or herself, guess other people’sweights, and manipulate a 3D human figure byincreasing or decreasing different body areas.

Spider World. This scenario was a kitchenwhere the participants could walk, forwardand backwards, open and close drawers anddoors, and interact with (pick up) objects (a fry-ing pan, a ball, vegetables). Finally, they couldinteract with a virtual spider: chase it, touch it,and make it to pop out from a bucket.

Spanish participants were randomly as-signed to the claustrophobic or body image sce-narios, excluding those participants with claus-trophobic anxiety or body image or eatingdisorder problems. To verify this, participantswere assessed using a subjective measure onanxiety in claustrophobic situations (from 0 to10) and the Restriction Scale,14 which assessesdiet concerns and weight fluctuations and isuseful to screen subclinical populations for eat-ing disorders. Participants in the Americansample were excluded from the study if theyscored higher than 30 (range 1–42) in a reducedversion (six items) of the Fear of Spiders Ques-tionnaire.15

Hardware

The hardware used to create the claustro-phobic virtual environment consisted in an In-tergraph TDZ310 Workstation with a GTZ25graphical card, a medium quality HeadMounted Display (V6 from Virtual Research),and a 3D joystick (Flying Joystick from VirtualPresence). The body image application was de-

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veloped using the WorldUp software fromSense8. The hardware consisted of a platformbased on PC Pentium II with an AccelEclipseGraphical Card from AccelGraphics, a mediumquality Head Mounted Display (V6 from Vir-tual Research), and a 2D mouse. In the case ofthe SpiderWorld scenario, a Silicon GraphicsOctane MXE with Octane Channel Option cou-pled with a wide field-of-view (40 degrees hor-izontal by 105 degrees horizontal with 40 de-grees overlap) head mounted display (DivisiondVisor) was used to create an immersive 3D in-teractive computer-simulated environment. APolhemus Fastrak position tracking system wasused to measure the position of the user’s headand hand position, and the location of the vir-tual spider.

RESULTS

Although the sample was small in size, a fac-tor analysis was carried out in order to base theconclusions on empirical data instead of on arational strategy. Factor analysis with a Vari-max rotation was used. Those items whose fac-torial loads were less than .30, did not load inany factor, or items that were loaded in severalfactors were excluded from the analysis. The fi-nal result was 18 items distributed in three fac-tors explaining 53.23% of variance (Table 1).

Factor 1 was named “reality judgement.” Re-ality judgement explained 24,78% of varianceand consisted of eight items. As it can be seenin Table 1, five out of those eight items are re-ality judgement items, one is a realism item,and two are presence items. Factor 2 wasnamed “interaction/external correspondence.”This factor explained 17% of variance and con-sisted of six items: five out of them are inter-action items and the remaining one is a pres-ence item (Table 1). Factor 3 was named“attention/absorption.” Attention/absorptionexplained 11.5% of variance and consisted offour items: half of the items are attentionalitems, and half are presence items (related toabsorption) (see Table 1).

Factor 1 was significantly correlated withFactor 2 (r 5 .33, p , .001) and Factor 3 (r 5 .25,p , .01). The alpha reliability (internal consis-tency) for the questionnaire was 0.82.

DISCUSSION

These results point to the need of determin-ing the variable of reality judgement, particu-larly when the focus is to design useful mea-sures in the application of VR to mental health.In the original questionnaire there were 17items addressing presence and 14 addressingreality judgement. After the correspondinganalyses, the final version of the questionnaireincluded five reality judgement items and fivepresence items. But, whereas the reality judge-ment items grouped into a single factor, thepresence items were watered down among thethree factors obtained. Regarding the remain-ing two factors, they indicate that both exter-nal correspondence and attention/absorptionare important elements that influence both re-ality judgement and presence. These two fac-tors were not correlated, but both did correlatewith the first factor, reality judgement.

The type of sample employed may have re-markably influenced on the results. The sce-narios where the participants were immerseddid not stimulate any type of emotion becauseparticipants who had the slightest problem inany of the environments were excluded. Thisfact could have prevented any emotional in-volvement or internal correspondence factorsfrom showing up. Thus, the following task,which we have already started on, is to applythe questionnaire to clinical samples to eluci-date whether the same or different factorsemerge. The validation process of any ques-tionnaire is a long and hard task that needslarge samples to study the correlations withother measures supposedly related to the ques-tionnaire.

As was pointed out previously, both con-cepts of reality judgement and presence are rel-evant for VR, but it is feasible that their im-portance was determined by the aim of theparticular VR application. There are applica-tions that need a high sense of presence, but donot need to achieve reality attributions. In oth-ers, both aspects are essential. Therefore, dif-ferent assessment instruments are needed, ac-cording to the specific field of interest. Thecorroboration of this issue would be very use-ful because it would guide researchers in theirefforts to achieve a high degree of presence, of

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reality judgement, or both in virtual environ-ments.

Lastly, we would like to emphasize that thestudy and assessment of reality judgement invirtual environments is not only important inthe particular field of VR, but it may also bevery useful in the general field of psychology.The question “How do people decide whethersomething is real or not?” is a venerable one inpsychology.8 That was the subject of one ofWilliam James’s most famous papers (writtenin 1869), and it has intrigued most psy-chopathologists throughout history. Attribut-ing reality to unreal things, or denying reality

to real ones, is taken as the most serious signof mental illness. By focusing on this topic wewill be able to improve our understanding ofcore aspects of many mental disorders.16 VRhas the capability of becoming a valuable frameto investigate this topic.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The realization of this work has been possi-ble thanks to the funding from the FEDER pro-gram (1FD97-0260-C02-01) and from “Fondode Investigacion Sanitaria” (FIS 99/0997).

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TABLE 1. FACTORIAL ANALYSIS

RotatedFactors Items loadings

Factor 1: 18. To what extent did the experience seem real to you? .819Reality judgment 11. In your opinion, how was the quality of the images in .781

the virtual world?2. To what extent was what you saw in the virtual world .742

similar to reality?37. How real did the virtual objects seem to you? .72938. To what extent was what you experienced in the virtual .712

world congruent to other experiences in the realworld?

17. To what extent did you feel you “went into” the .701virtual world?

32. To what extent did your interactions with the virtual .657world seem natural to you, like those in the real world?

9. To what extent did you feel you “were” physically in .543the virtual world?

Factor 2: Internal/external 40. To what extent could you move around the virtual .806correspondence world?

60. To what extent were the events in the virtual world .735congruent to your actions?

36. To what extent could you interact with the virtual .723world?

21. To what extent did the virtual world respond to your .716actions?

54. To what extent did your actions produce changes in .591the virtual world?

56. To what extent were you yourself while experiencing .473the virtual environment?

Factor 3: 61. To what extent did you feel it was necessary to .749Attention/absorption devote all your attention to what you were doing in the

virtual world?30. To what extent did you feel like you “went into” the .712

virtual world and you almost forgot about the worldoutside?

48. To what extent did you have to pay excessive attention .655to what was going on in the virtual world?

70. To what extent did you forget you were in a room .606wearing a helmet?

REFERENCES

1. Steuer, J. (1992). Defining virtual reality: Dimensionsdetermining telepresence. Journal of Communication ,42(4):73–93.

2. Rizzo, A.A., Wiederhold, M.D., & Buckwalter, J.G.(1998). Basic issues in the use of virtual environmentsfor mental health applications. In Riva, G., Widerhold,B.K., & Molinari, E. (eds.) Virtual environments in clin-ical psychology and Neuroscience. Amsterdam: IOSPress, pp. 22–42.

3. Witmer, B.G., & Singer, M.J. (1998). Measuring pres-ence in virtual environments: A presence question-naire. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments,7(3):225–240.

4. Heeter, C. (1992). Being there: The subjective experi-ence of presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual En-vironments , 1(2):262–271.

5. Slater, M., & Usoh, M. (1993). The influence of virtualbody in presence in immersive virtual environment.In Virtual Reality ‘93: Proceedings of the Third AnnualConference on Virtual Reality . Westpot, CT: MecklerLtd., pp. 34–42.

6. Shapiro, M.A., & McDonald, D.G. (1992). I’m not areal doctor, but I play one in virtual reality: Implica-tions of virtual reality for judgments about reality.Journal of Communication, 42(4):94–114.

7. Steuer, J. (1995). Defining virtual reality: Dimensionsdetermining telepresence. In Bioca, F., & Levy, M.R.(eds.) Communication in the age of virtual reality . En-glewood, NJ: L.E.A.

8. Brickman, P. (1978). Is it real? In Harvey, J.H., Ickes,W., & Kidd, R.F. (eds.) New directions in attribution re-search (vol. 2). Hillsdale: Erlbaum (pp. 5–34).

9. Baños, R.M., Botella, C., Garcia-Palac ios, A., Villa, H.,Perpiña, C., & Gallardo, M. (1999). Psychological vari-ables and reality judgment in virtual environments:The roles of Absorption and Dissociation. CyberPsy-chology & Behavior , 2(2):143–148.

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10. Fontaine, G. (1992). The experience of a sense of pres-ence in intercultural and international encounters.Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments,1(4):482–490.

11. Botella, C., Baños, R.M., Perpiñá, C., Villa, H., Alcañiz,M., & Rey, A. (1998). Virtual reality treatment of claus-trophobia: A case report. Behaviour Research and Ther-apy, 36:239–246.

12. Perpiñá, C., Botella, C., Rey, A., Marco, H., Baños,R.M., Alcañiz, M., & Quero, S. (1999). Body image andvirtual reality in eating disorders: Exposure by vir-tual reality is more effective than the classical bodyimage treatment? CyberPsychology and Behavior ,2(2):149–159.

13. Carlin, A.S., Hoffman, H.G., & Weghorst, S. (1997).Virtual reality and tactile augmentation in the treat-ment of spider phobia: A case study. Behaviour Re-search and Therapy , 35:153–158.

14. Herman, C.P., & Mack, D. (1975). Restrained and un-restrained eating. Journal of Personality , 43:647–660.

15. Szymanski, J., & O’Donohue, W. (1995). Fear of Spi-ders Questionnaire. Journal of Behavioral Therapy andExperimental Psychiatry , 26:31–34.

16. Baños, R.M., Botella, C., & Perpiñá, C. (1999). Virtualreality and psychopathology. CyberPsychology and Be-havior 2(4):283–292.

Address reprint requests to:Rosa M. Baños, Ph.D.

Departamento de PersonalidadFacultad de Psicologia

Universidad de Valencia.Avda. Blasco Ibañez, 2146010-Valencia, Spain

E-mail: banos@uv.es

APPENDIX: REALITY JUDGEMENT AND PRESENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

1. How clear was what you saw in the virtual world?2. To what extent was what you saw in the virtual world similar to reality?3. To what extent could you predict or anticipate what you were going to see in the virtual

world?4. How clear were the sounds in the virtual world?5. To what extent was what you heard in the virtual world similar to reality?6. To what extent could you predict or anticipate what you were going to hear in the virtual

world?7. To what extent did you feel bodily sensations in the virtual world (heat, cold, etc.)?8. To what extent could you predict or anticipate the bodily sensations you were going to feel

in the virtual world?

9. To what extent did you feel you “were” physically in the virtual world?10. To what extent were your perceptions in the virtual world (visual, somatic, etc) congruent?11. In your opinion, how was the quality of the images in the virtual world?12. To what extent did you experience things you were not expecting to happen to the virtual

world?13. To what extent did things in the virtual world have impact on you?14. To what extent did what you experienced in the virtual world fit the information you had

about what was going to happen?15. To what extent did what you experienced in the virtual world fit your expectations about

what could happen in a virtual world?16. To what extent was what you experience in the virtual world a fiction?17. To what extent did you feel you “went into” the virtual world?18. To what extent did the experience seem real to you?19. To what extent did you feel as a passive spectator in the virtual world?20. To what extent did you feel as an active participant in the virtual world?21. To what extent did the virtual world respond to your actions?22. To what extent do you trust in the information computers offer you?23. To what extent do you believe the computer (virtual reality system) could trick you?24. To what extent were the voices or other perceptions from outside the virtual world con-

gruent to what you were experiencing in the virtual world?25. Do you believe other people similar to you could have an experience similar to yours in the

virtual world?26. Do you believe the virtual world was able to induce emotions?27. To what extent did the virtual world make you feel emotions (anxiety, sadness, happiness,

etc.)?28. To what extent did you feel emotionally involved in the virtual experience?29. To what extent did you wish to let yourself be carried by the virtual world?30. To what extent did you feel like you “went into” the virtual world and almost forgot about

the world outside?31. To what extent did you find the joystick, mouse, etc. easy to manipulate?32. To what extent did your interactions with the virtual world seem natural to you, like those

in the real world?33. To what extent was your experience in the virtual world a challenge to you?34. To what extent were the objects present in the virtual world?35. To what extent was the experimenter/therapist present in the experience?36. To what extent could you interact with the virtual world?37. How real did the virtual objects seem to you?38. To what extent was what you experienced in the virtual world congruent to other experi-

ences in the real world?39. To what extent was what you experienced in the virtual world different to other experiences

you had in the real world?40. To what extent could you move around the virtual world?41. To what extent did your movements in the virtual world seem natural to you?42. To what extent did the mechanisms that controlled your movements in the virtual world

seem natural to you?43. To what extent did the mechanism that controlled your movements let you move in a nat-

ural way in the virtual world?44. To what extent was there a delay between your actions and their effects in the virtual world?45. To what extent was it difficult for you to “go into” the virtual world?46. To what extent was it easy for you to get used to the virtual world?47. To what extent did the experience imply a mental effort to you?

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48. To what extent did you have to pay excessive attention to what was going on in the virtualworld?

49. Did the experience make you learn anything?50. To what extent did you feel you had initiative to do things in the virtual world?51. To what extent did the actions and events in the virtual world have continuity, as in in a

movie?52. To what extent did you feel you had control over the experience?53. Did you believe you could finish the virtual experience at your will?54. To what extent did your actions produce changes in the virtual world?55. Did you assume/play a role while experiencing the virtual environment?56. To what extent were you yourself while experiencing the virtual environment?57. To what extent did you feel you had to play a role in the virtual world?58. To what extent do you believe the virtual system had initiative?59. To what extent could you accurately estimate the time you spent in the virtual world?60. To what extent were the events in the virtual world congruent to your actions?61. To what extent did you feel it was necessary to devote all your attention to what you were

doing in the virtual world?62. To what extent did you feel self-satisfaction while experiencing the virtual environment?63. To what extent did the virtual experience seem satisfying/reinforcing to you?64. To what extent did you get bored while experiencing the virtual world?65. To what extent did you have a good time while experiencing the virtual world?66. To what extent did you feel disappointed while experiencing the virtual world?67. To what extent would you like to repeat the virtual experience?68. To what extent did the virtual experience lack sensations?69. To what extent did the virtual experience lack emotions?70. To what extent did you forget you were in a room wearing a helmet?71. To what extent did the virtual experience seem more like a computer game, an entertain-

ment?72. To what extent did the quality of the images in the virtual world influence how real the ex-

perience seemed to you?73. To what extent did what you heard and the quality of the sound in the virtual world influ-

ence how real the experience seemed to you?74. To what extent did the bodily sensations you felt in the virtual world influence how real the

experience seemed to you?75. To what extent did the bodily sensations influence how deep into the virtual world you

went?76. To what extent did the sounds influence how deep into the virtual world you went?77. To what extend did the quality of the images influence how deep into the virtual world you

went?

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