Breaking Plausibility Without Breaking Presence - Evidence for the Multi-Layer Nature of Plausibility

Abstract

A novel theoretical model recently introduced coherence and plausibility as the essential conditions of XR experiences, challenging contemporary presence-oriented concepts. This article reports on two experiments validating this model, which assumes coherence activation on three layers (cognition, perception, and sensation) as the potential sources leading to a condition of plausibility and from there to other XR qualia such as presence or body ownership. The experiments introduce and utilize breaks in plausibility (in analogy to breaks in presence): We induce incoherence on the perceptual and the cognitive layer simultaneously by a simulation of object behaviors that do not conform to the laws of physics, i.e., gravity. We show that this manipulation breaks plausibility and hence confirm that it results in the desired effects in the theorized condition space but that the breaks in plausibility did not affect presence. In addition, we show that a cognitive manipulation by a storyline framing is too weak to successfully counteract the strong bottom-up inconsistencies. Both results are in line with the predictions of the recently introduced three-layer model of coherence and plausibility, which incorporates well-known top-down and bottom-up rivalries and its theorized increased independence between plausibility and presence.