A core aspect of the human self is the attribution of personal relevance to everyday stimuli enabling us to experience our environment as meaningful [1]. However, abnormalities in the attribution of personal relevance to sensory experiences are also critical features of many psychiatric disorders [2, 3]. Despite their clinical relevance, the neurochemical and anatomical substrates enabling mean...

As Biocca pointed out, the “two poles model“ of presence has only considered the virtual and pyshical spaces, but not the imaginary spaces. This work is aimed at comparing the sense of presence between virtual and imaginary environments. 100 participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (imagined versus virtual spaces) and the subjective sense of presence was measured in thre...

We describe the ``WEDGE'' immersive projection theater. The WEDGE has been built as an affordable installation for university VR infrastructure in Australia. It achieves a ``semi-immersive'' sense of presence without, apparently, give rise to significant discomfort. The vertex region of the theater appears to be especially effective in giving a sense of presence. See http://wedge.anu.edu.au/ fo...

Researcher at the Transport and environment laboratory of the national institute of research on transport and their security (INRETS-LTE) i Acoustical engineer at the Transport and environment laboratory of the national institute of research on transport and their security (INRETS-LTE)

A growing body of research about personal epistemological beliefs has provided tertiary educators with evidence to inform strategies in promoting eff ective teaching and learning. Personal epistemological beliefs refer to an individual’s beliefs about the nature of knowing and knowledge and are considered to infl uence how one engages in teaching and learning experiences. Th ere has been very l...

The authors investigated the extent to which racial factors, cultural factors, or both influence a person's beliefs about physical time, personal time, and experienced and remembered duration. A total of 750 Black American, Black African, and White American students responded to a questionnaire on these beliefs about time. Factor analysis was used to compare belief structures. Pairwise comparis...

Personal stories make our everyday experiences memorable over time. This paper presents ‘Everyday Mediated Storytelling’, a model of the casual storyteller’s process of capturing, creating and sharing personal mediated narratives. Based on this model, an online authoring and publishing application for sharing everyday rich-media narratives named ‘Confectionary’ was developed. Results from a len...

Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) are atypical Parkinsonian disorders with extended morbidity and reduced lifespan, known to have marked and early impact upon quality of life (QoL). This study aimed to address the lack of studies in the literature regarding personal perspectives on QoL in MSA and PSP in both patients and carers. Participants took part in qua...

Our aim in this study was to explore HIV/AIDS peer counseling from the perspective of women actively engaged in this work within the context of a community-based program in rural areas of the southeastern United States. Based on this research we suggest that the embodied work of HIV/AIDS peer counselors is constructed around their personal identities and experiences. This work involves gaining ...