Tangible Presence in Blended Reality Space

The authors discuss issues relating to presence arising from the recent evolution of tangible interaction techniques as an alternative interaction paradigm to the familiar WIMP-based Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The intersection of sensory, cognitive and also emotional aspects in such interfaces takes them a significant step further than GUI techniques. They introduce their concept of Tangible Presence in Blended Reality Space, and its study as an emerging weaving of HCI and presence research. An experimental study is then described, which examined the influence of three key factors in the way blended realities may be implemented: tangibility, viewpoint and avatar identity.