Abstract

The concept of presence has generated much discussion over the past few years. There is a consensus that presence exists and that it can be experienced as a reaction to environmental stimuli. However, less has been written on the psychological mechanisms of engaging in presence. We argue that presence is closely linked to empathy and that strong empathic tendencies will lead to high levels of experienced presence. In this study we investigate the relationship between presence, empathy, and gender. A 2x2 experimental design was administered to participants who interacted with a flight simulator. Our results indicate that men and women engage in presence in different ways. Men appear to engage in presence via the interaction afforded by the virtual environment, whereas women appear to engage in presence via watching the environment. Both men and women appear to use empathic ability as a means of engaging in presence. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Introduction

Technologies such as the Internet and interactive television have caused us to reexamine our understanding of how communication can affect an audience. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is particularly interesting due to the opportunity it provides for direct feedback and the ability to customize individual messages. Certainly the most visible medium for CMC is the Internet. However, CMC also takes place through a wide variety of channels including computer kiosks, CD-ROM based applications, satellite TV as well as the industry trend toward convergence of television and computer-based methods of content delivery. Within this convergence, computer-mediated communication offers an enhanced ability to interact with a desired target audience and potentially establish stronger links between sender and recipient.

Traditionally, CMC technologies were dominated by men. However, as the technologies have become more advanced and accepted, the gender split has become more or less even. In 1994 the Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center (Pitkow & Recker, 1994) reported that 95% of Internet users were male. By 1998 that number had been reduced to 66% male (Kehoe, Pitkow, Sutton, Aggarwal, & Rogers, 1998), and recent studies have reported approximately equal numbers of male and female Internet users (UCLA Center for Communication Policy, 2003). Have differences in technology affected this difference in up-take between men and women, and do these differences still exist? Do men and women perceive and respond differently to CMC environments?

In this study we investigate the psychological impact of the structural nature of CMC on its audience. Specifically we investigate the impact of immersion within a CMC channel and its effect on the perceived presence experienced by participants. Furthermore, we explore the relationship between experienced presence and empathic ability, and examine the different ways in which men and women experience a sense of presence. To explore these relationships we chose a popular flight simulator computer game. We chose a computer game for several reasons. First, a computer game offers an advanced level of interaction and immersion. As such, we could present a compelling experience that allowed for real time feedback to the participant with gave the participant a direct ability to affect the presented scenario; the consequences of actions taken were direct and immediate. Second, it allowed for control over the testing conditions. We could modify and control different interaction and vividness conditions. Finally, it is our contention that as technology advances, computer-mediated communication will become more interactive. This context for testing allows us a peek at the future of communication. Accordingly, "point and click" will be replaced in this article by "selection and interaction."

Theoretical Considerations

In this section, we review the theoretical understandings of presence and empathy available in the literature and propose that the two are closely related. Indeed, it is our proposition that the mechanisms underlying them are very similar, in that both experiences depend on the ability to project vicariously.

Presence

Presence, as it is most commonly conceived and interpreted (Heeter, 1992; Sheridan, 1992a, 1992b; Steuer, 1995), refers to the subjective feeling of existence in an experienced environment (this environment could include the natural, social, or virtual worlds). Gibson (1992) defines presence as "the sense of being in an environment," while Lombard and Ditton (1997) characterize the construct as "the perceptual illusion of non-mediation." Central to each definition is the idea that presence is a result of one's self-awareness in relation to one or several environments.

Most of the research on presence, as it relates to communication, focuses on self-awareness in relation to virtual environments. This is the arena where computer-mediated communication takes place. The discussion attempts to determine what elements in the natural environment need to be modeled in the virtual environment in order to facilitate awareness of being there. This perspective understands presence as a form of travel from the natural environment to the virtual environment (Lombard & Ditton, 1997). Much of the research in this area has been done with complete isolation from the natural environment and has focused on motor control and skill development (Freeman, Avons, Meddis, Pearson, & Ijsselsteijn, 2000; Slater, Sadagic, Usoh, & Schroeder, 1998). Some work in this area has been done with television and less than ideal viewing conditions (Kim & Biocca, 1997). The advances in this area are very closely tied to technological development and the human-computer interface.

Antecedents to Presence

There has been much discussion in the literature as to exactly what aspects of the environment promote a sense of presence. Akin, Minskey, Thiel, and Kurtzman (1983) consider manipulation and dexterity coupled with feedback over a channel as causes of presence. Steuer (1995) links presence to vividness and interactivity. Zeltzer (1992), however, views autonomy, interaction, and presence as causes of telepresence, presence specifically experienced via a communications channel. Autonomy is the range of possible interactions, similar to Steuer's view of interactivity, and presence is a measure of the match between human and machine. Zelter states that it is "a rough, lumped measure of the number and fidelity of available sensory input and output channels" (1992, p. 128). Witmer and Singer (1998) understand presence as requiring four distinct precursors: control, sensory, distraction, and realism factors. Control factors are when the consequences of the action performed are consistent and apparent. This is similar to Steuer's interactivity and Zeltzer's interaction. Sensory factors are the factors that impact the physical receptors and are similar to Steuer's concept of vividness. Distraction factors are sensory impacts from the natural world and not the mediated environment. Realism factors represent the continuity and connectedness of the experience. Similarly, Draper (1998) suggests that presence is a matter of attention and focus and that the ratio of attention resources applied to the mediated environment versus that of the natural world can be a measure of presence.

Our conceptualization of the conditions that engender presence draws heavily on Steuer's work (1995). We view presence as the result of immersion in the CMC environment. Immersion, in a CMC experience, is the extent to which the artificial environment impacts a participant in place of the natural environment. To date, most forms of electronic communication have impacted the visual (sense of sight) and auditory (sense of hearing) and to a lesser extent the haptic (tactile) systems. CMC situations add the haptic system to the sense of immersion through interaction with the manipulation tools present such as a mouse, keyboard, and joystick. Other sense systems include the olfactory (sense of smell) and gustatory (sense of taste) systems.

According to Steuer, vividness and interactivity are the two basic elements that contribute to level of immersion in the CMC channel (Steuer, 1995). Vividness refers to the degree of impact on the senses being accessed and is defined by its formal features, breadth, and depth. Sensory breadth refers to the number of senses simultaneously impacted; sensory depth refers to the detail or "quality" of each sense experienced. Vividness, therefore, is a measure of the completeness of the environment presented. Interactivity is the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment. Based on the previous discussion we present the following hypotheses:

Empathy

Empathy has been examined in terms of its role in advertising. Most notably, Stern has investigated empathy in terms of advertising effects in relation to vignette advertising (1994), and has also explored classical allegory in contemporary advertising (1990). Stern claims that empathy is a form of typological association that heightens the impact of the advertisement: "Superimposing a surface story on a positively valued core story encourages consumers to draw on feelings relating to the core and transfer them to the present experience" (pp. 17-18). The identification of the story elements, as related to by the empathic responses to the characters in the story, draws upon Boller's (1988) work with narrative advertisements. Stern, however, notes that this association is possible without explicit characters being present. She cites a Jaguar automobile ad in which the audience identifies with the mystique of the jaguar animal. Thus, in order for empathy to be elicited, a situation that is appropriate must be experienced-one where there is an opportunity to associate with the events that are being portrayed. The most applicable situation in terms of advertising and persuasive communication is a story that will allow for such dramatic elements as setting, plot, and characterization to develop and impact the viewer.

The construct of empathy

Research in clinical psychology describes empathy in two forms: trait empathy and state empathy. The former type is conceptualized as an ability to "know another person's experience" (Buie, 1981, p. 282), or to "feel (perceive) the feelings (emotions) of another" (Sawyer, 1975, p. 37). The unifying understanding is that empathy is an ability that is either innate to the person or one that can be developed. As Duan and Hill (1996) state, "[t]he implicit assumption underlying this view is that some individuals are more empathic than others, either by nature or through development" (p. 262).

The second form of empathy, as understood through the clinical psychology literature, is as a situation-specific, cognitive-affective state (Hoffman, 1984). In this perspective, empathy is viewed as a vicarious event, a projection of oneself into another's experiences (Batson & Coke, 1981). Boller (1988) defines empathy as "[t]he process whereby people transpose themselves imaginatively into the feelings and actions of the portrayed characters." This conceptualization of empathy lends itself well to the dramatic nature of advertising. The underlying assumption is that empathy is situation-specific and is in response to specific stimuli.

Empathy as a concept has been investigated almost solely in terms of interpersonal connection. Davis (1983), however, breaks empathy into four major factors: Perspective Taking, Fantasy (cognitive factors), Empathic Concern, and Personal Distress (affective factors). Perspective Taking considers an individual's reported tendency to embrace the psychological point of view of another; Fantasy is defined as using imagination to experience the feelings and actions of characters in creative works; Empathic concern is an other-oriented component of empathy defined by regard and sympathy for another's feelings; and Personal distress is a self-oriented response to difficult interpersonal situations of others. Davis shows that empathy is a more varied and powerful construct than just connections with another's feelings. He includes implicitly the ability of self-projection onto another in a form of understanding, as well as the idea that one may project oneself onto a created character as opposed to a real person.

Empathy and presence

Common to the definitions of both empathy and presence is the idea that individuals imaginatively create thoughts, feelings, and reactions in response to fictional portrayals. These thoughts are consistent with what the individuals would actually think, feel, and do in a "real situation." As a response to fictional portrayals, empathy is the process whereby people imaginatively transpose themselves into the experiences of others (real or imagined). However, as can be seen from both Stern's and Davis' work, empathy is more than just understanding the feelings of another. Indeed, according to Stern, one does not need another character or person to be present in order to empathize with a given situation, as demonstrated by the Jaguar commercial. We believe that the ability to empathize requires a specific skill set, including the ability to vicariously project oneself onto another. Davis (1983) indicates, however, that empathy is a broader concept than just identification with others. Our argument is that one who is empathic by nature is more likely to experience presence in a CMC environment. Recent work by Regenbrecht and Schubert (2002) indicates that the degree of presence experienced can be affected by the level of expected interaction. Participants who expected a greater level of interaction experienced higher levels of presence under identical circumstances. Additionally, Ijsselsteijn (2002) makes the argument that presence is a reaction to sensory stimulus on perceptual, cognitive, and emotional levels. If presence is as much psychological and emotional as it is perceptual, then logically it follows that some people are more adept at engaging in presence than others, just as some are more empathic than others. For this reason, we think that empathy and presence use the same projective "tool set" to become a part of the experience. Whereas empathy has always been explored as the connection between two individuals (or individual and character), presence is the connection between individual and environment. Both should use the same techniques of vicarious projection. Thus we hypothesize:

The Role of Gender and Presence with Respect to Immersion and Empathy

The role of gender in reaction to communication stimuli has been of interest to both academics and practitioners for some time (Darley, 1995; Holbrook, 1986; Meyers-Levy & Maheswaran, 1991; Meyers-Levy & Sternthal, 1991; Prakash & Flores, 1984). Gender is often used as a segmentation variable in communication strategies, and interesting differences have been noted in academic literature over the past few decades. Rosenthal and DePaulo (1979) found that women are more accurate in decoding nonverbal cues, and Holbrook (1986) reported that women are more visually oriented than men. Additionally, work has been done in exploring the differences in gender reaction to message cues (Meyers-Levy & Maheswaran, 1991; Meyers-Levy & Sternthal, 1991) and the strategies used to process them (Darley & Smith, 1995; Myers-Levey & Maheswaran, 1991).

Some work has already been done in regards to gender differences and environmental stimulus; however, the results have been mixed. Roussos et al. (1999) found no gender differences in the ability of children to master an interaction device. Differences, however, have been reported concerning the spatial ability of men and women (Witmer & Kline, 1998) and in their reactions to small group situations. Women reported higher levels of accord (Slater et al., 2000) and were able to overcome the limitations of a low channel richness environment (Savicki & Kelly, 2002) better than groups consisting of all males or mixed groups.

Despite these mixed results for gender differences, there is little doubt that it is a subject that is important to researchers. Gender may play a role in the different ways in which presence is perceived, and there have been calls to investigate it (Lombard & Ditton, 1997)

Empathy and Presence

It has long been accepted within the psychology field that women are more empathetic than men. (For a complete review see Prakash and Flores, 1985.) Based on our proposal that empathy and presence use similar skill sets, we propose further that women will experience higher levels of empathy and, therefore, presence than men under CMC conditions.

Immersion and Presence

While it is generally accepted that vividness and interactivity affect presence (Biocca, Kim & Choi, 2001; Ijsselsteijn, de Ridder, Freeman, Avons, & Bouwhuis, 2001; Schubert, Friedmann, & Regenbrecht, 2001) there is much less certainty as to whether or not there are distinct differences between genders in terms of responses to environmental stimulation. Men have been reported to be better at spatial orientation (Maitland, Intrieri, Schaie, & Willis, 2000). Conversely, women have been reported to be more visually oriented (Holbrook, 1986), and to be more comprehensive processors of information (Darley & Smith, 1995). However, Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) indicate that context may play a bigger part in one's reaction to environmental stimulus than gender. In a meta-analysis of the psychology literature with respect to gender differences they found little evidence to support any kind of perceptual differences between men and women. Commonly "understood" differences such as men having better spatial orientation or women being more aurally attuned did not bear out in the majority of the studies examined. Since the understanding of gender differences with respect to sensory stimulus is at best mixed, the following two hypotheses are proposed, with no gender direction indicated:

Methodology

Scales

Scales drawn from previous studies were used to measure presence and empathy. The presence scale was drawn from Kim and Biocca's (1997) scale of presence, based on both Lombard and Ditton's (1997) and Steuer's (1995) theoretical considerations. The empathy scale used was drawn from Davis (1983). As this experiment has no social characters with which to interact, we used the propensity to fantasize subscale as developed by Davis. This scale focuses on fictitious situations and the ability to project oneself vicariously.

Manipulated Conditions

Since the basic premise of this paper is that perceived environmental conditions affect presence, it was necessary to devise a vicarious interactive scenario. The experience needed to be modeled along the lines of what may be possible via CMC channels such as the Internet in the near future. It is our contention that such interactive experiences will become more and more prevalent as a communication technique. The scenario chosen was flying a light plane (A Cessna 185 with fixed gear).

Our mediated setting needed to accomplish several specific tasks. First, the setting had to be familiar to participants to a certain extent. Participants would have a limited time in which to become comfortable with the setting and needed to be able to interact with it on a fairly intuitive level. As such, an understanding of the rules of interaction needed to be established quickly. The scenario also needed to be fairly exotic and the task unfamiliar to most participants. A setting that is too mundane would garner less attention and, perhaps, less presence. Also necessary in the simulation chosen was a high degree of customization, so that different testing conditions could be engineered.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 was chosen for this study as it offered a good compromise. The program is very realistic and has a high degree of selectivity for the parameters of engagement. To test the proposed relationships, a 2x2 level between-subjects experimental design was developed. Subjects were selected, randomly subjected to a treatment, and then post-tested. The sample was solicited from the graduate and undergraduate classes of a large mid-southern university in the United States, and randomly assigned to one of four possible groups. The immersion conditions consisted of two types of interactivity (non interactive, interactive) and two levels of vividness (low, high). The non-interactive condition consisted of subjects viewing a comparable situation that showed a pre-recorded "video" of the same scenario out of the game, whereas the interactive condition allowed participants to control the airplane in real time. Vividness levels were manipulated via the high vs. low-resolution parameters of the simulation. The high vividness condition consisted of high-resolution graphics and sound. The low vividness condition had low-resolution graphics with no sound. The non-interactive video was recorded from the game and exhibited the same vividness testing conditions as the interactive scenario.

Scenario

Participants were tested in groups of 10 or fewer and were told that they were to take part in a study about learning to fly a light plane. They entered the room and were assigned to a computer where they were told about the study. Each computer station was separated by means of a curtain and all subjects wore headphones to further isolate them sonically. The subjects were engaged in the scenario for approximately 30 to 45 minutes and then administered a post-test questionnaire. Elapsed time for each session was 45 minutes to an hour. After completing the post-test questionnaire, subjects were debriefed and thanked for their participation.

During the session, interactive subjects were first instructed on how to use the various controls and what the different readouts meant. They were then allowed to practice without consequences from their actions. Once the subjects demonstrated a certain level of comfort with the plane and the joystick controls, they were given a task to complete and the lights were turned off. Upon completion of the task, or after 10 minutes, subjects were administered the post questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered via a web page and the results electronically entered into a database.

The non-interactive participants were given the same introduction to the scenario and were instructed to watch the video and report on their reactions to it during the post-test. Non-interactive participants did not receive instructions on how to fly the plane but they were debriefed as to the meaning of the instrument readouts on the dashboard. The video that the non-interactive participants experienced showed a successful take off and landing of the light plane and lasted approximately 10 minutes. The point of view for this video was from the cockpit of the plane, as if they were looking out the front windshield. The lights were turned off during the video and each participant watched it at their own computer, isolated in the same manner as the interactive participants. After the video the lights were turned on, and the participants were instructed on how to get to the web page in order to take the post questionnaire.

Results

Sample

The sample for this study was drawn from the population of a large US southern university's graduate and undergraduate student body. Each student was randomly assigned to a treatment condition. The sample consisted of 184 subjects split into four groups, each group having a sample size between 43 and 47 members. The sample consisted of 89 males and 95 females, giving a 48%:52% split. All subjects were over the age of 18 with 70% between the ages of 18 and 24, 19% between the ages of 25-34, 8% between the ages of 35-44 and 3% between the ages of 45-54. 72% were single, 19% were married, 6% were living together, and the remaining 2% were divorced. The educational level of the sample consisted of 60% with some college, 14% with an associate's degree, 19% with a four-year college degree, 3% with a master's degree and 1% with a professional or doctoral degree.

Scale Refinement, Validity, and Reliability

All scales used a range of responses from 1 to 6, and were subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis through the SPSS computer program. Items with a factor loading of less then .5 were trimmed from the final scale. This cutoff value is considered to be conservative with a sample of this size. However, since most of the scales used are not newly developed, the conservative cutoff was deemed appropriate. All scales reported reliability greater than the minimum acceptable cutoff of .70 (Nunally, 1978) with alphas between .75 and .96 and explained variance ranging between 56.6 and 93.4 percent. Scale items and loadings can be found in Table 1.

Relationships

Hypotheses 1 and 2 were tested using analysis of variance with presence as the dependent variable and vividness, interactivity, and gender as the conditions. Both men and women experienced higher levels of presence under interactive conditions (M = 3.31, SD = 1.30) as opposed to non-interactive conditions (M = 2.84, SD = 1.34). Additionally, both men and women experienced higher levels of presence under conditions of high vividness (M = 3.28, SD = 1.34) than conditions of low vividness (M = 2.97, SD = 1.31). As such, both hypotheses were supported. While the main model was significant at the .05 level (F (7, 181) = 2.26, p = .032), its explanatory power was rather low. Additionally, while interactivity showed strong effects (F (1, 181) = 6.00, p = .015), vividness reported a weaker level of confidence for its results (F (1, 181) = 3.01 p = .081). As these hypotheses are replications of earlier work, we believe that our weaker results for vividness can be conditionally accepted with reservation.

Hypothesis 3 was tested by regressing empathy onto presence. Our results indicate that a participant's degree of empathic ability does lead to a higher level of experienced presence (R2 = .134, B = .284, p = 0.0) under the immersive game condition.

Gender Effects

In order to test hypotheses 4 through 7, an ANOVA was again utilized, either with empathy as the dependant variable (hypothesis 4), or Presence as the dependant variable (hypotheses 5- 7). Hypothesis 4 stated that women exhibit higher levels of empathic ability (M = 4.13, SD = 0.89) than do men (M = 3.86, SD = 1.13). Hypothesis 4 was supported at the .05 level of significance (F (1, 268) = 4.92, p = .027). Hypothesis 5 stated that because women exhibit higher levels of empathic ability than men, women (M = 3.11 SD = 1.33) will exhibit higher levels of presence than men (M = 3.14, SD = 1.33) in a CMC situation. This hypothesis was not supported (F (1,269) = .05, p = .83). Hypothesis 6 stated that there would be no gender differences under conditions of high vividness (Mw = 3.25, SD = 1.28), (Mm = 3.32, SD = 1.42). This hypothesis was supported with a non-significant model (F (3, 268) = 1.34, p = .26). Hypothesis 7 was not supported by returning a significant model (F (3, 181) = 3.67, p = .013) with significant interaction effects (F (1, 181) = 4.86, p = .029) for gender differences with respect to the level of presence experienced under highly interactive conditions (Mw = 3.04, SD = 1.33), (Mm = 3.61, SD = 1.23).

Discussion

As has been shown before (Biocca et al., 2001; Ijsselsteijn et al., 2001; Schubert et al., 2001), and replicated here, environmental conditions within a mediated situation appear to engender a sense of presence. What has not been explored previously is the connection between presence, empathy, and gender. Our results indicate that presence and empathy are closely related. We do not envision empathy and presence as the same thing, yet plausibly they use similar skill sets. The ability to project oneself in an intangible experience appears to be the basic mechanism used to engage in both states. While our results replicate earlier results, it is important to note that the different vividness conditions did not have as great an impact on presence as was expected. It may be the case that the testing conditions did not present as large a difference in vividness conditions as was thought to have been engineered. Additionally, it is possible that by the time the simulation was used for the experiment, it was no longer state-of-the-art and more advanced flight simulators had been released. The perceptual difference between the conditions may thus have been confounded by subjects' experience with computer games that were more graphically advanced.

Our results show that one's ability to empathize does indeed affect one's degree of experienced presence in a CMC experience. This result indicates that experiencing presence is not just a matter of reaction to environmental stimulus, but of ability as well. Our results are strengthened by the fact that there were no character representations with which to empathize. If an individual engages in presence in an environment with no characters and that individual does so via their empathic skill set (as appears to be the case here), it strengthens the idea that empathy and presence are closely related constructs. That being said, it is possible that our understanding of presence is incomplete. Empathy has been explicated as the emotional projection of one's feelings onto another. Our results suggest that presence is a form of emotional projection as well. That is, presence may be the emotional connection to a place, as opposed to the cognitive recognition of being in a space. In order to feel present in an environment, a person may need to do just that—feel" as if he or she is in an environment. This emotional connection conceivably strengthens the bond between participant and the presented environment. Thus it is possible that any definition of presence that focuses on the cognitive understanding of the environment without including the emotional understanding of being in the environment is necessarily incomplete.

Gender Differences

While our results corroborate the idea that women are more empathic than men, this did not translate into women experiencing higher levels of presence than men. Nor do our results indicate that empathy is a significantly better predictor of presence for men than women, delivering a non-significant interaction term (R2 = .139, B = .106, t = .69, p = .49). This finding is intriguing, as it suggests that empathic ability is equally as good a predictor of presence for men as for women. Moreover, both genders respond to environmental conditions with respect to presence, but appear do so differently. While neither gender was particularly affected by the difference in the vividness conditions, men were much more affected than women by the difference in interactivity conditions. There was no significant rise in presence level for women between non-interactive conditions (M = 2.97, SD = 1.32) and interactive conditions (M = 3.03, SD = 1.33). However, there was a significant difference in levels of experienced presence for men between non-interactive conditions (M = 2.69, SD = 1.37) and interactive conditions (M = 3.61, SD = 1.23). Also, there is a significantly lower presence score for men (M = 2.69, M = 1.37) than women (M = 2.97, SD = 1.32) in non-interactive conditions and a significantly higher presence score form men (M = 3.61, SD = 1.23) than women (M = 3.03, SD = 1.33) under interactive conditions. This is shown in Figure 1.

1

We conclude from these findings that women react less than men to the type of interaction presented in this study, and that this may hold true for other types of interaction as well. To sum up, men appear to engage in presence more by doing, and women appear to engage in presence more by watching, and both genders appear to engage in presence through empathic ability.

Limitations and Future Directions

The technology used to produce this experiment is arguably already outdated, succumbing to the rapid changes undergone by CMC technologies. The experimental situation in the present study, while more immersive and interactive than a current web page, is outdated when compared to the most recent video game and simulation techniques. Therefore, this study should be replicated with more current technologies in order to validate the results.

Also, there were no character representations in the experiments; work needs to be done in terms of reaction to characters within the mediated experience. Can CMC-presented characters engender useful levels of empathy? The theoretical understanding of empathy in light of presence also needs to be investigated and explicated. What are the factors that make up presence, is empathy one of them, and how exactly do they interact?

A further limitation is that the experimental results were rather weak, with only a relatively small amount of variance explained. This could be because there are other unmeasured variables that impact the degree of experienced presence, or it could reflect an imperfect understanding in our operationalization of presence. Refinement of this relatively recent construct is necessary in order to further our understanding of presence and its relationship to empathy.

Finally, additional investigation into the different ways in which men and women interact with CMC environments is warranted. What kinds of presented immersion do men and women respond to? The limited nature of interactivity as presented by earlier technologies might not have been appealing to women. Newer forms or more realistic forms of interactivity may be necessary, especially in terms of character and social interaction. As CMC technologies become a larger part of the communication mix, these questions will need to be addressed.

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About the Authors

Stefan G. Nicovich (Ph.D., The University of Memphis) is an Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire. His research focuses on artificial environments and simulations and how consumers respond to them.
Address: The University of New Hampshire, 15 College Rd, Durham, NH 03824 USA

Gregory W. Boller (Ph.D., Penn State University) is the Chair of the Marketing and Supply Chain Management Department at the University of Memphis. His research interests center on marketing communications, negotiation strategy and social marketing.
Address: The University of Memphis, The Fogelman College of Business and Economics, Memphis, TN 38152 USA

T. Bettina Cornwell (Ph.D., The University of Texas) is Professor of Marketing in the UQ Business School at the University of Queensland. She was formerly Professor of Marketing in the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis in the United States. Her research focuses on promotion and consumer behaviour, especially with regards to international and public policy issues.
Address: The University of Queensland, Room 550B Colin Clark 39, St. Lucia Qld 4072 Australia