Impact of Cognitive Style upon Sense of Presence Corina Sas and Gregory O'Hare Department of Computer Science University College Dublin Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland {corina.sas; gregory.ohare}@ucd.ie Abstract The role played by cognitive style upon sense of presence has been addressed in the presence literature. However, no experimental study was carried out in order to investigate this hypothesized relationship. This paper highlights the relationship between each of four bi-polar dimensions of cognitive style, such as extraversion–introversion, sensing–intuition, thinking– feeling and judging –perceiving, and the experienced level of sense of presence. Implications of these individual differences for understanding sense of presence and for designing virtual environments to address these differences are discussed. 1 Introduction One of the psychological phenomena experienced by users while (and not only) they interact with virtual reality systems, is a sense of presence. It allows them to be there (Schloerb & Sheridan, 1995), to feel themselves immersed and moreover to perceive the virtual world as another world where they really exist. In our previous work, we defined presence as a psychological phenomenon, through which one's cognitive processes are oriented toward another world, either technologically mediated or imaginary, to such an extent that he or she experiences mentally the state of being (there), similar to one in the physical reality, together with an imperceptible shifting of focus of consciousness to the proximal stimulus located in that other world (Sas & O’Hare, 2001). Sense of presence is particularly experienced when the task being carried out requires a high involvement of both cognitive and affective resources. The experience within the remote world is a complete one, encompassing cognitive, emotional and behavioural aspects. In other words, the more the users think, feel and act in the remote world and the more collateral activities are inhibited within the real worlds, the more sense of presence they will experience (Sas & O’Hare, 2002). Understanding users’ preferred manner of processing information opens a door towards their perception of world, either physical or virtual. The term of cognitive style was coined by Allport (1937) and is rooted in Jung’s theory of psychological types (1971). Despite the large number of meanings attributed to it, cognitive style refers to enduring patterns of cognitive behaviour (Grigorenko, 2000). It describes the unique manner in which the unconscious mental processes are used in approaching and/or accomplishing cognitive tasks. Curry’s Onion Model (1983), presented by Riding (1991) proposes a hierarchical structure of cognitive styles, with the outmost layer referring to the individual’s choice of learning environment, with the middle layer referring to the information processing style and with the innermost layer consisting of cognitive personality style. Defined as the individual’s tendency to assimilate information, cognitive personality style is an enduring and context-independent feature. Therefore, it should make little difference if the context of providing cognitive stimulation is technologically mediated or not, as long as the given task involves information processing.