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Why Does It Always Rain on Me? Influence of Gender and Environmental Factors on Usability, Technology Related Anxiety and Immersion in Virtual Environments

  • Conference paper
Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 8253))

Abstract

Collaborative virtual environments and technical possibilities in general are still a growing and more and more important influence on everyday life. According to corresponding studies it seems that context conditions as well as individual factors such as gender play an important role in the experience of virtual environments (i.e. immersion and technology-related anxiety) and in the rating of the used technology (i.e. its perceived usefulness). Thus, the objective of the current study was to evaluate the above mentioned factors in a group of 14 women and 14 men using two different emotionally charged collaborative virtual environments. The corresponding results indicate that there are in fact gender differences: Women reported higher levels of technology-related anxiety and immersion. In general, participants in the rainy condition rated the usefulness of the virtual environment higher. Also, women in the rainy condition rated the perceived usefulness higher than women in the cheerful condition whereas in the group of men it was vice versa.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, Department of Applied Psychology: Health, Development, Enhancement and Intervention, University of Vienna, Austria

    Mareike Schmidt, Johanna Xenia Kafka, Oswald D. Kothgassner & Anna Felnhofer

  2. Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, University of Vienna, Austria

    Johanna Xenia Kafka

  3. Faculty of Computer Science, Research Group Entertainment Computing, University of Vienna, Austria

    Oswald D. Kothgassner, Helmut Hlavacs, Leon Beutl & Anna Felnhofer

Authors
  1. Mareike Schmidt
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  2. Johanna Xenia Kafka
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  3. Oswald D. Kothgassner
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  4. Helmut Hlavacs
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  5. Leon Beutl
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  6. Anna Felnhofer
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Human Media Interaction/Creative Technology, University of Twente, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 NB, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Dennis Reidsma

  2. School of Science and Technology, Department of Human System Interaction, Kwansei Gakuin University, Gakuen Sanda 2-1, 669-1337, Sanda, Japan

    Haruhiro Katayose

  3. Human Media Interaction, University of Twente, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 NB, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Anton Nijholt

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© 2013 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Schmidt, M., Kafka, J.X., Kothgassner, O.D., Hlavacs, H., Beutl, L., Felnhofer, A. (2013). Why Does It Always Rain on Me? Influence of Gender and Environmental Factors on Usability, Technology Related Anxiety and Immersion in Virtual Environments. In: Reidsma, D., Katayose, H., Nijholt, A. (eds) Advances in Computer Entertainment. ACE 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8253. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03161-3_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03161-3_29

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-03160-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-03161-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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