The Theory Of Spatial Presence (aka Immersion)

As i have been researching into immersion within video games, i came across this article called " The Psychology of immersion in video games" and this article talks about how researchers have been studying "immersion" withing media for years. However researchers don't call it immersion, they call it "Spatial Presence".

The reason why researchers call it this is because Spatial Presence is often there within players when media contents such as games, is perceived as real and that players experience a sensation and feeling of being spatially located within the game world.

A couple of years ago a man called Werner Wirth and a group of other researches sat down and come up with a theory about what makes a player leave the real world behind. Here is a chart of his theory:


Werner Wirth concluded that Spatial Presence happens in 3 stages:

1. Players form a image in their minds of the game world with which they are presented with. what this means is, the player has a mental model of the game world from various cues such as images, movement and sounds and maybe other assumptions they might have. once this has been created in the players mind, he/she will then decide whether they feel they are in the game world or still in the real one.  
2. Players then begin to favor the game world that they are in and use this as a point of reference. The psychological term is  "Primary ego reference frame"
3. Profit

That was just a overview of what Spatial Presence is. I will research more into this to get a better understanding of it.