Telepresence

Telepresence, the perception of presence within a physically remote or simulated site, has been identified as a design ideal for synthetic environments. However, confusion exists within the literature about the precise definition of telepresence. Furthermore, there is a need for a plausible and parsimonious model of telepresence. This paper identifies three types of telepresence extant in the literature: simple telepresence, cybernetic telepresence, and experiential telepresence. The third definition is the most interesting. This paper reviews the origins of experiential telepresence and the theoretical approaches commonly used to explain it. One can term these technological approaches, which emphasize the role of control/display technology, and psychological approaches, which identify experiential telepresence with known psychological phenomena. Finally, the paper presents and discusses an integrative approach to telepresence featuring a structured attentional resource model. Actual or potential applications of this research include the design of future human-machine interfaces for teleoperated robots and virtual reality systems.