Abstract:

Spatial presence is an experience/feeling of “being there” when an individual is immersing into a virtual environment with absorption,which includes two dimensions: self-location and possible action perceived possible behaviors in the virtual mediated environment. Belonging to the field of embodied cognition, Spatial presence is similar to, but different from the experiences in the immediate physical world The existing literature on spatial presence can be divided into two parts: theoretical construction and empirical researches. The former applies deductive approach to explore the process of formation, determining factors and influential factors of it; the latter mainly adopts the experimental research to measure the spatial presence, to investigate the concrete effects of various influential factors, as well as the effects in different virtual environments. In the future researches, the two kinds should be integrated, and theoretical models can be applied to the basic and practical problems of media psychology, so as to promote the researches in the field. In addition, the neural mechanism of the spatial presence, the value and effects of the actual application of spatial presence also need to be further explored.

Key words: spatial presence, process model of the formation, spatial situation model, primary egocentric reference frame