Does gender matter? Exploring experiences of physical and social presence in men and women

Abstract

It has repeatedly been suggested that gender may play a constituting role in the formation and experience of presence when interacting with a mediated environment or with a virtual character. However, studies looking into possible gender differences in presence are still rather scarce. Existing studies use environments with a differing degree of interactivity (e.g., television, simulators) thus producing conflicting results. This diversity of methods and ambiguity of findings both call for a more thorough literature review to be able to draw valid conclusions and to add to a more robust theoretical basis. Therefore, this chapter will first outline past research on gender differences in both social and physical presence. The focus will especially be on virtual reality applications commonly used for social interaction or therapy purposes. Accordingly, three studies focusing on gender differences will then be described in more detail; the first two studies look at students' presence experiences in both a stressful and a non-stressful virtual environment. The third study expands its scope and focuses on gender differences in younger and older adults when interacting with virtual characters in a collaborative virtual environment. Overall, the results are conflicting but point toward an advantage of men over women, regardless of their age, in physical but not in social presence. It becomes clear, however, that there might be a range of factors mediating the relationship between gender and presence. The conclusion discusses these factors and elaborates recommendations for future research.