Understanding Users’ Engagement and Responses in 3D Virtual Reality: The Influence of Presence on User Value

Abstract

AbstractVirtual reality (VR) provides new opportunities for businesses to gain competitive advantages by enabling them to innovatively engage customers. Based on presence theory, this study aims to test the influences of two major components of presence, social presence and spatial presence, on users’ perceptions of hedonic value, utilitarian value and engagement in the VR environment. An experiment was conducted on two conditions of a VR application (low vs. high social presence) to test the hypotheses proposed in the research model. The results reveal that social presence and spatial presence can improve the hedonic value of VR. However, inconsistent with previous studies, our findings reveal a negative relationship between spatial presence and engagement. Theoretical and practical implications and future research directions are subsequently discussed.