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G. Riva, M.T. Anguera, B.K. Wiederhold and F. Mantovani (Eds.)
From Communication to Presence: Cognition, Emotions and Culture towards the
Ultimate Communicative Experience. Festschrift in honor of Luigi Anolli
IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2006, (c) All rights reserved - http://www.emergingcommunication.com
fact the hostis is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and
alien so that, in the extreme case, conflicts with him are possible.
Finally, another important role of presence and social presence is probably related to
the processes of internalization and externalization. Vygotsky [93, 94] states that
internalization and externalization are the dialectical mechanisms that allow an
individual to construct higher psychological structures. On one side external activity
transforms internal cognitive processes (internalization). On the other side,
knowledge structures and moments of internal activity organize and regulate external
social processes (externalization).
According to Vygotsky [93], internalization is social by its very nature: is not just
copying but rather a transformation or reorganization of incoming social information
and mental structures based on the individual’s characteristics and existing
knowledge. The opposite process of internalization is externalization. Mental
processes manifest themselves in external actions performed by a person, so they can
be verified and corrected, if necessary. This dialectical process also leads to the
production of new tools.
Here we suggest that the processes of internalization and externalization are
influenced by the experienced presence and social presence in actions and
interactions:
o the more is the presence and social presence experienced during an
interaction, the more is the possibility that the contents of the interaction will
be internalized;
o the more is the level of presence experienced during an activity, the more is the
possibility that the content of the activity will be externalized.
3.5.5 From Inner Presence to Media Presence
As discussed in detail in the previous chapter by Coelho and colleagues the research
work on virtual reality produced two coexisting visions of presence: the rationalist
and the psychological/ecological points of view. The researchers agreeing with the
rationalist approach describe the sense of presence as a function of the experience of
a given medium (Media Presence). The main outcome of this vision is the definition
of presence as the perceptual illusion of non-mediation [115], produced by means of
the disappearance of the medium from the conscious attention of the subject. The
main advantage of this approach is its predictive value: the level of presence is
reduced by the experience of mediation during the action. The main limitation of this
vision is what is not said. What is presence for? What is not mediated?
In contrast, the psychological/ecological point of view presented in this chapter
considers presence as a neuropsychological phenomenon, evolved from the interplay
of our biological and cultural inheritance, whose goal is the expression and
recognition of self/other intentionality (Inner Presence).
However, the difference between Inner Presence and Media Presence is not so much:
rationalists define the feeling of presence as the “perceptual illusion of nonmediation”
[115]; we defined it as the “non-mediated (prereflexive) perception that an intention
is being enacted successfully”. Where is the difference?
Apparently the main difference is in what is “non-mediated” by presence. In this
paper we clearly indicated successful intentions as the non-mediated content.
Lombard and Ditton suggest that a person is present when his/her response to the
medium is not mediated: