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Presence has been described as mediated contents being experienced as real and one’s self-awareness being immersed into another world (Draper, Kaber, & Usher, 1998). According to Lombard and Ditton (1997), presence is a perceptual illusion of non-mediation. Following a proposition by Slater and Wilbur (1997), the term presence is separated from immersion in more recent literature (Cummings & Bailenson, 2015; Hein, Mai, & Hußmann, 2018; Wu, Gomes, Fernandes, & Wang, 2018). Immersion is based on technical properties of the system and is objectively quantifiable. Presence, however, is the individual psychological response to the properties of the system (Norman, 2010; Wirth et al., 2007; Witmer & Singer, 1998). Empirical findings show that presence is indeed modulated by individual expectations and personality traits (Bucolo, 2004; Weibel, Wissmath, & Mast, 2010; 2011a; 2011b). This distinction will be used henceforth in this article by examining the influence of immersion (the characteristic of a computer game) as well as presence (the individual experience of immersion).
According to Reinecke (2009a; 2009b), the immersive experience (i.e. presence) is a key factor that accounts for the recovery experience of computer games. Recovery is a concept from organizational psychology and describes the renewal of depleted physical and psychological resources after phases of stress and strain (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2007; Sonnentag & Zijlstra, 2006). Sonnentag and Fritz (2007) proposed four central aspects of successful recovery: Psychological detachment (mental disengagement from work-related stress), relaxation (deactivation of arousal and increased positive affect), mastery (building up new internal resources through challenging experiences and learning opportunities), and control (increased self-efficacy and feelings of competence through experiencing personal control). The results of Reinecke (2009a; 2009b) suggest that presence goes along with psychological detachment, which contributes to the recovery experience of gaming activity. Additionally, entertaining media are an ideal way to stop negative cognitions and preventing episodes of rumination by letting their users immerse in the mediated environment. This is in line with Tamborini and Skalski (2006) who suggest that playing computer games requires the full attention of the player and strongly binds cognitive capacities to the screen, what in turn leads to a highly immersive experience. Games also often require taking over new roles (Bessière, Seay, & Kiesler, 2007) and experiencing fictional worlds (Yee, 2006). They provide opportunities to control the progress of events or characters (Klimmt & Hartmann, 2006) and to experience feelings of autonomy, challenge, and competition (Klimmt & Hartmann, 2006; Ryan, Rigby, & Przybylski, 2006). Thus, computer games contribute to all four aspects of successful recovery and are likely to enhance mood and support recovery form stress and strain (Collins & Cox, 2014; Reinecke, 2009a; 2009b; Reinecke et al., 2011).