Work-in-Progress—How Do Different Degrees of Immersion and Points of View in Immersive Videos Affect the Quality of Science Communication?

Abstract

This work-in-progress paper aims to investigate the effect of immersive 360° and conventional two-dimensional videos presented with a Head-Mounted Display (HMD) as a science communication tool. Immersive videos, recorded in 360° and played back through HMDs, enable capturing authentic experiences, which are often hard or impossible to access in real life. This holds significant promise, potentially reshaping the public's perception of science. However, precisely for this reason, it should be closely examined. Immersive videos can vary in their design. The degree of immersion (in this study: monoscopic, conventional video vs. stereoscopic, 360° video) and the point of view (frontal vs. lateral view of the presenting scientist) from which the video is filmed might influence how the viewers perceive the contents in the videos. The ideal degree of immersion and the impact of different perspectives within these videos remain unclear. Therefore, the project addresses hypotheses related to the impact of varying degrees of immersion and different points of view within immersive videos on dependent variables such as the epistemic trustworthiness of the displayed scientists, the feeling of presence, user engagement, parasocial interactions, and learning retention. The goal of this research is to understand the influence of factors such as the degree of immersion in the context of science communication with immersive videos more precisely and, based on this, to provide informed assistance for the design and presentation of such videos.