Reciprocal Presence. A Qualitative Analysis of Psycho-Social Interaction in Virtual Reality

This research concerns psycho-social interactions in Virtual Reality. In order to investigate subjective experience by a qualitative approach, in the first experiment the feasibility of the thinking aloud data production technique has been verified. The second study investigated the process of presence, by analyzing data produced in the first study, within a grounded theory approach. The use of Virtual Reality in mental health, and particularly for psychotherapy, introduces a radical modification in the therapeutic setting: the typical configuration requires the patient to be immersed in the VE, while the therapist observes and controls the interaction by “outside” the environment. This unique ecosystem requires a qualitative approach to investigate it. In the third study, a qualitative content approach has been used, in order to describe the interactional processes and the co-construction of the sense of presence. In the fourth study, conversational processes in a shared VE have been investigated by creating a shared task in VR and in vivo. Results from this research program suggest the interactional nature of the sense of presence.

La tesi presenta una ricerca sull'interazione psicosociale in realtà virtuale. Il primo studio esplora l'impatto di una metodologia di produzione dei dati qualitativa sull'esperienza in RV; il secondo studio esplora, con un approccio grounded theory, le modalità di costruzione della presenza; il terzo studio esplorare l'interazione in rv durante delle sessioni di terapia; il quarto studio, tramite il ricorso all'analisi delle conversazioni, esplora le modalità di co-definizione dei significati in rv.