Cognitive control and a sense of presence in virtual environments

Abstract

User interaction with a virtual reality system may be accompanied with a sense of presence, the illusion of reality of virtual environment. The emergence of a sense of presence is determined by both technological and psychological factors. The authors show that a sense of presence may depend on the individual characteristics of cognitive control, i.e. the system of metacognition providing cognitive system setting on the solution of specific problems in context. It was found that the expression of a feeling of presence may depend on the efficiency of the control switch functions, interference suppression and updating of working memory. At the same time, the dependence of the severity of the sense of presence on the effectiveness of cognitive control differs in virtual environments with different levels of immersion.