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 Notice
Board for Presence AnnouncementsThis is a virtual notice board where members of the presence community and other interested parties are invited to post (at no cost):
To post an item, please e-mail your materials to ispr@ispr.info. Include a title, a short (max. 400 word) text description in plain text, MS Word, or html format (not in Acrobat .pdf format), and include any graphics files (standard, web compatible formats only). Posts will remain on the site indefinitely unless you specify a removal date. Posts will also be distributed once via the presence-l listserv unless otherwise requested. For more information please e-mail us at ispr@ispr.info.
PROJECTS (Posted February 20, 2008) Participants needed for study researching the use of Virtual Reality Therapies (VRT) in the treatment of anxiety disorders and phobias. This project, which is conducted by Dr. Joyce Davidson from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada is in need of personal reflections of experiences with Virtual Reality Therapies. We are interested in hearing both from people who are users of these therapies, and finding out how user- friendly VRT is. You might be able to help us understand whether the therapy helped you manage your anxiety disorder more easily, and whether you think the treatment or its implementation might be improved. Is there anything you would like those involved in developing these kinds of therapies to know? What about the therapist you worked with? and those involved in development or implementation of Virtual Reality technology as therapy. Participants will be interviewed by Dr. Davidson or her research assistant, Leah Huff, either in person, by phone, or via email or written responses. Interviews are expected to last one hour and participants will be compensated $25 for their time. Your anonymity will be protected at all times. Interested individuals should contact Leah Huff for information and a preliminary questionnaire. Please send an email to leahahuff@gmail.com indicating your name and contact information, as well as your preferred form of contact (phone or email) for an interview. (Posted January 4, 2008) Matthew Lombard, president of ISPR, has collected a variety of images related to telepresence over the years and have made them available in a set of photo galleries on the web. The collection now has over 1000 images in an expanded set of categories:
Please feel free to visit the galleries and use the images in academic presentations and/or for teaching. If you have images you'd like to contribute or information about current images you'd like included in an image caption, or if you just have feedback about the galleries, please e-mail Matthew at lombard@temple.edu The url is: http://matthewlombard.com/presencepics (Posted January 8, 2006) CALL FOR PARTICIPATION TELEPRESENCE IN POPULAR CULTURE http://lombardresearch.temple.edu/p4 Technologies that evoke presence (short for telepresence) - a sense of "being there" in a virtual or media environment, or more generally, an "illusion of nonmediation" - are increasingly available to and popular with the public. And even though the term itself is rarely used, portrayals of presence have become common in popular culture - in films (e.g., The Matrix), on television (e.g., the various Star Trek series), in novels (e.g., William Gibson's Neuromancer), and elsewhere. We're conducting a systematic analysis of these portrayals in which fictional characters experience one or more types of presence (see the web site of ISPR, the International Society for Presence Research, for detailed definitions) to better understand:
We've developed a short online coding instrument for a qualitative content analysis of portrayals of presence and linked the instrument with an online database to which entered information is stored. As the database of information about these portrayals grows, we'll examine the data for meaningful patterns, and eventually write a report of our findings. What you can do (and why you might want to) This is a fun but ambitious project that requires many hands - we really need and want your help. When you encounter or remember a movie or TV show, novel, video game, comic book, or advertisement that includes a portrayal of presence, please visit the project web site (http://lombardresearch.temple.edu/p4) and fill out the short web form to add a new portrayal to the project's database. There's also a list of portrayals that need to be added; if you're familiar with any of them, or would like to see/read one or more of them, please add them to the database as well. Or if you know of portrayals not in the database, please let us know so we can add them to the list. If you teach a course (e.g., related to presence and/or research methods), please consider creating an assignment (e.g., for extra credit) in which students review the web site, read/watch a presence portrayal and enter the information into the database. All contributors to the database will be acknowledged by name in all reports. If you have any questions (and/or might be interested in becoming a project member and co-author on this project), please contact Matthew Lombard at lombard@temple.edu. Project members Matthew Lombard (Posted November 4, 2005) Feedback sought on Presence Typology Matthew Lombard and Matthew T. Jones at Temple University request feedback on a typology of presence definitions they're developing for a chapter in the upcoming Handbook of Presence. The typology is an attempt to characterize the many different uses of the terms presence and telepresence in diverse literatures. The current draft of a chart containing the typology is available in html format at http://matthewlombard.com/downloads/pdefs.htm and in MS Excel (.xls) format at http://matthewlombard.com/downloads/pdefs.xls. Please e-mail any/all constructive reactions to Matthew Lombard at lombard@temple.edu. (Posted November 17, 2007) Study on the Technology Acceptance Model: Measuring the intention of using virtual reality in psychological treatment Dear colleagues, As a community interested in the use of VR, we need to know why professionals intend to use (or not) this technology to treat mental disorders in clinical practice. This is why we are asking your collaboration. You don't have to currently use VR in your clinical practice, as long as you have at least an idea of what it is. If you practice psychotherapy and if you agree to participate in this important survey, just click on http://mcantamesse.net/survey/index.php?sid=3 I invite you to take 15 minutes of your time to help us understand therapists' attitude and beliefs about a variety of factors that are related to people's acceptance of VR technology and intention to use it. This is a research project where we gather data on professionals who have at least a minimum idea of what VR is in order to model the relationship between different factors relevant to acceptance of technology. You are invited to fill the survey on-line. You can read the consent form on-line on the website, or I can send you a paper copy if you prefer. Rest assured that everything will be kept anonymous and confidential. No data will be collected on your identity (e.g., your IP address will not be monitored and we will not put cookies on your computer). Understanding why professionals want to use (or not use) VR will guide researchers on how to generalize their results to therapists outside the research field. If you have any question, you can contact either myself or Manon Bertrand who is charge of the project at manonbertrand@sympatico.ca . Thank you very much in advance for your collaboration. Stéphane Bouchard, Ph.D. Titulaire de la Chaire de Recherche du Canada en Cyberpsychologie Professeur régulier à l'UQO Chercheur au Centre Hospitalier Pierre-Janet (Posted November 17, 2007) The Sense of Presence in Gross Motor Gaming All adults (over the age of 18) with experience using games that use whole-body movements to control the game (e.g. Nintendo´s Wii; Dance Dance Revolution) and access to the internet are encouraged to participate. Participation in this study is completely voluntary, will take no more than fifteen minutes, and can be completed from any computer with internet access. To access to study site, direct your internet browser to: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=TYdzkIO27M61WAYODhyKDg_3d_3d If you have questions feel free to contact Sean Early at: (Posted November 17, 2007) A Collection of Presence Images For several years I've been collecting various images related to telepresence and I've put them in a set of photo galleries on the web. The 750+ images are in galleries in these categories: Characters and avatars Please feel free to visit the galleries and use the images in academic presentations. If you have images you'd like to contribute or information about current images you'd like included in an image caption, or if you just have feedback about the galleries, please e-mail me at lombard@temple.edu. The url is: http://matthewlombard.com/presencepics Matthew Lombard, Ph.D. (Posted November 2, 2005) Web Awareness and Virtual Presence I created a collection of virtual presence and web awareness related developments (http://www.virtual-presence.org/). The Virtual Presence web site explains the foundations of the virtual presence concept and references projects, products, research, systems, publications, and opinions. The web site serves as a focal point for people interested in the topic. It specializes on virtual presence on the web. I invite researchers and developers to add their projects, products, and publications to this page. The web is not just a collection of linked documents. The web is a virtual space of millions of virtual places. Each web site is a virtual place. There are many users, browsing the same pages at the same time. Web awareness makes people visible on web pages. Users could be represented as avatars on the browser window. But there are many other ways to display the co-presence of people on the web. Virtual presence on the web enables ubiquitous communication. It transfers the normal behavior from the real world to the virtual space of the web. In shops the sales person can talk to customers. Blogs authors can meet their readers on their home page. Community members can see avatars of other members. Distributed workgroups meet at groupware pages, virtual classes on the lecture page. People can meet each other by chance on any page. Virtual presence shows the real life on the web. Link: http://www.virtual-presence.org/ Dr. Heiner Wolf Notice Board: PROJECTS - ARCHIVES |