What is Coaction Field

On the Internet, a cyberspace is created where people communicate together, usually by using textual messages. Therefore, they cannot see each other in cyberspace. Whenever they communicate, it is desirable for them to see each other as if they were gathered at the same place. To achieve this, various kinds of concepts have been proposed, such as a collaborative environment, Tele-Immersion, and tele-presence (Sherman & Craig, 2003). In this article, HyperReality (HR) is introduced. HR is a communication paradigm between the real and the virtual (Terashima, 1995, 2002; Terashima & Tiffin, 2002; Terashima, Tiffin, & Ashworth, in press). The real means a real inhabitant, such as a real human or a real animal. The virtual means a virtual inhabitant, a virtual human, or a virtual animal. HR provides a communication environment where inhabitants, real or virtual, that are at different locations, meet and do cooperative work together as if they were gathered at the same place. HR can be developed based on virtual reality (VR) and telecommunications technologies.