Attention, and Presence

Multimodal virtual environments (VE) succeed better than single-sensory technolo-gies in creating a sense of presence. We hypothesize that the underlying cognitive mechanism is related to a faster mental processing of multimodal events. Compar-ing simple detection times of unimodal (auditory, visual, and haptic) events, with bimodal and trimodal combinations, we show that mental processing times are in the following order: unimodal bimodal trimodal. Given this processing-speed advantage, multimodal VE users start their cognitive process faster, thus, in a similar exposure time they can pay attention to more informative cues and subtle details in the environment and integrate them creatively. This richer, more complete and co-herent experience may contribute to an enhanced sense of presence.