Instantaneous evaluation of the sense of presence in audio-visual content

The sense of presence is crucial to evaluate the performance of audio-visual (AV) equipment and content. Previously, the overall presence was evaluated for a set of AV content items by asking subjects to judge the presence of the entire content item. In this study, the sense of presence is evaluated for a time-series using the method of continuous judgment by category. Specifically, the audio signals of 40 content items with durations of approximately 30 s each were recorded with a dummy head, and then presented as stimuli to subjects via headphones. The corresponding visual signals were recorded using a video camera in the full- HD format, and reproduced on a 65-inch display. In the experiments, 20 subjects evaluated the instantaneous sense of presence of each item on a seven-point scale under two conditions: audio-only or audio-visual. At the end of the time-series, the subjects also evaluated the overall presence of the item by seven categories. Based on these results, the effects of visual information on the sense of presence were examined. The overall presence is highly correlated with the ten-percentile exceeded presence score, S 10, which is the score that is exceeded for the 10% of the time during the responses. Based on the instantaneous presence data in this study, we are one step closer to our ultimate goal of developing a real-time operational presence meter.