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Immersive vs Presence 2/3

From Theory to Chaos: Why Even Experts Mix Up Immersion and Presence

In my previous post, I explained why your expensive VR headset doesn’t automatically transport you to another world: the difference between immersion (technical specs) and presence (psychological experience). But here’s where the story gets really interesting: even the experts can’t agree on what these terms mean.

A 2025 Nature paper explicitly warns that “even VR professionals may mistakenly use the terms ‘presence’ and ‘immersion’ interchangeably.” This isn’t simple confusion; it actively undermines scientific research and technological progress. Welcome to the wild west of IX terminology.

The Academic World Finally Gets It

After years of chaos, the VR/AR research community has reached consensus. Mel Slater’s framework has become the gold standard, and the distinction is actually surprisingly clear.

Immersion focuses on objective technical specifications, what you can actually measure and compare. Think resolution (4K per eye), refresh rate (120Hz), tracking accuracy, and latency under 20ms. It’s the “recipe” for virtual experiences, the ingredients that engineers put in specification sheets.

Presence, on the other hand, is the subjective psychological experience, the illusion of “being there” that emerges in your mind. That magical moment when your brain stops thinking “I’m looking at pixels” and switches to “I AM here.”

An analysis of 78 studies (2020-2024) shows universal agreement in academic venues when definitions are explicitly stated. Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, and they’ve all adopted Slater’s framework.

But step outside the ivory tower, and this clarity disappears completely.

Why Everyone’s Confused: Cross-Disciplinary Chaos

The problem goes much deeper than sloppy language use. Different research fields use fundamentally different definitions:

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Treats both concepts as design goals rather than different phenomena. Focus lies on user experience, blurring the technical-psychological boundary.

Psychology & Cognitive Science

Sometimes mixes presence with flow or absorption. Individual differences in presence susceptibility are studied, but conceptual boundaries blur.

Media Studies

Talks about “narrative immersion” versus “technological immersion”, concepts that don’t map at all to VR/AR definitions. This creates complete communication breakdowns in interdisciplinary work.

Gaming Research: The Worst Offender

Wikipedia’s gaming-oriented definition states that immersion is “the perception of being physically present in a non-physical world”, exactly what VR researchers call presence. A direct contradiction that misleads students and researchers.

Engineering & Computer Graphics

Ironically, this field has the best alignment with academic definitions. Focus on measurable, quantifiable approaches keeps concepts clearly separated.

The Real Impact: More Than Semantics

This confusion actively sabotages research and development. Take the research consequences: by now 57% of papers explicitly define presence upfront, a clear sign that researchers realize shared definitions don’t exist. Cross-study comparisons become impossible due to different terminology, and grant reviewers from different fields use different definitions. Student training varies dramatically by department.

The practical problems are equally frustrating. Engineers talk about immersion specs while UX designers mean presence experiences, a perfect setup for miscommunication. Technical specifications promise what users don’t psychologically experience, leading to disappointed expectations. And VCs? They often don’t know whether they’re funding “presence technology” or “immersion platforms.”

The IEEE P2048 Working Group, with 200+ companies developing VR/AR standards – acknowledges that terminological confusion remains a significant obstacle to standardization.

The Causal Relationship (And Why Nuance Is Crucial)

High Immersion → Enables → High Presence, but High Immersion ≠ Guaranteed High Presence.

Presence is also determined by factors that have nothing to do with technology. User characteristics play a huge role: veterans experience VR differently than beginners, distraction drastically reduces presence, and expectations work as self-fulfilling prophecies. “This will probably suck” literally ensures it sucks.

Content factors are equally important. Emotional relevance of the story, quality of interaction design, and believability of the virtual environment can make the difference between a superficial tech demo and an experience that stays with you for weeks. Context also plays a role: physical environment, social setting, fatigue, and it all influences that crucial psychological leap.

This explains why sometimes a technically simple but emotionally powerful experience evokes more presence than a dazzling tech demo.

The Solution: Precision Over Convenience

The solution requires precision over convenience, and that starts with researchers. Always define terms explicitly at the beginning of papers, use Slater’s framework as standard reference, and specify measurement instruments clearly. The distinction between technical and psychological variables must be crystal clear.

Developers can help by separating technical documentation (immersion) from UX communication (presence), training teams in terminological differences, and using context-appropriate terminology. Company-specific style guides prevent marketing and engineering from talking past each other.

The entire field needs interdisciplinary terminology workshops, standardized measurement protocols, and shared dictionaries for interdisciplinary work. Regular field surveys of term usage can show where we stand and where improvement is needed.

From Chaos to Clarity

The academic consensus exists; now we must build upon it to create uniform field terminology that serves everyone. This requires cultural change in how different communities communicate about immersive technology.

Because ultimately, clear communication determines whether we innovate faster or remain stuck in terminological mud. The stakes are high: unclear terminology leads to wrong expectations, misdirected investments, and slower progress.

The academic consensus provides a solid foundation. Now the challenge is building upon it to create a unified field vocabulary that serves researchers, developers, and users alike. Precision over convenience, because the future of VR/AR depends on it.