Telepresence

Telepresence, the perception of presence within a physically remote or simu lated site, has been identified as a design ideal for synthetic environment s. However, confusion exists within the literature about the precise defini tion of telepresence. Furthermore, there is a need for a plausible and pars imonious model of telepresence. This paper identifies three types of telepr esence extant in the literature: simple telepresence, cybernetic telepresen ce, and experiential telepresence. The third definition is the most interes ting. This paper reviews the origins of experiential telepresence and the t heoretical approaches commonly used to explain it. One can term these techn ological approaches, which emphasize the role of control/display technology , and psychological approaches, which identify experiential telepresence wi th 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 v irtual reality systems.