Immersion vs Presence 1/3
Why Your Expensive VR Headset Won’t Automatically Transport You to Another World
10/09/2025 – By Natasja Paulssen
You buy the latest VR headset with 4K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and spatial audio so realistic you can almost feel the virtual wind. You put it on, start a game… and still feel like you’re standing in your living room with a plastic box on your head. What went wrong? The answer lies in the difference between immersion and presence, two concepts often confused but fundamentally different.
Immersion: The Technical Promise
Immersion is about what the technology can offer you. Think of immersion as the objective “ingredients” of your VR experience. According to groundbreaking research by Slater & Wilbur (1997), “the degree of immersion can be objectively assessed as the characteristics of a technology”, things you can measure and compare:
- Field of view: How much of your vision is occupied by the virtual image?
- Resolution and framerate: How sharp and smooth is what you see?
- Tracking precision: How accurately does the system follow your head movements?
- Audio quality: How realistic does the virtual world sound?
- Interactivity: Can you manipulate objects and influence the world?
You can rank VR systems “along a spectrum of immersiveness”: from a smartphone in a cardboard Google Cardboard (low) to enterprise-level VR suites with haptic feedback and room-scale tracking (high). More immersion usually means a higher price tag too.
But here’s the kicker: more pixels don’t automatically mean a better experience.
Presence: The Magical Leap
Presence is where the real magic happens. It’s “a state of consciousness that may be concomitant with immersion, and is related to a sense of being in a place.” Presence is that moment when your brain makes the switch from “I’m looking at pixels” to “I AM here.”
This illusion is “perceptual but not cognitive”, your perceptual system automatically responds to the virtual environment, while your cognitive system still knows it’s not real. It’s similar to how you can be startled by a jumpscare in a horror movie, even though you know it’s just a film.
Research consistently shows that “participants had a higher sense of presence in immersive than in desktop VR,” but the relationship isn’t linear. Sometimes a simple game with good storylines and clever gameplay can evoke more presence than a technically impressive but boring experience.
Witmer and Singer have demonstrated that “immersion is a prerequisite for experiencing presence”, you need a certain level of technical quality. But above that threshold, presence is determined by much more than just technology.
The Human Factor: Why You Matter More Than Your Headset
Here’s where it gets interesting: presence is determined as much by what you bring to the table as by what the technology offers. Some crucial factors:
Expectations and mindset: If you start skeptically (“this is probably going to suck”), the chance of presence is lower. Go in with an open mind, and your brain helps complete the illusion.
Attention and focus: Studies show that “cognitive load was negatively associated with spatial ability in non-immersive VR”, if you’re distracted or find the system difficult to use, this reduces your sense of presence.
Prior experience: VR veterans often experience differently than newcomers. Some get better at “surrendering” to the experience, others become more critical as they try more systems.
Content that resonates: The most powerful VR experiences touch on universal human themes, curiosity, fear, wonder, social connection. A technically simple but emotionally powerful experience often beats a dazzling tech demo.
The next time you put on a VR headset, remember: the pixels are just the canvas. The artwork emerges from the unique collaboration between technology and your own brain. And sometimes that artwork is surprisingly beautiful, even on a canvas that’s technically not perfect.
Based on research by Slater & Wilbur (1997) and recent studies on presence in virtual environments.
immersive, Presence, Virtual reality
