We used a questionnaire to investigate how non-researchers conceptualize sense of presence. Respondents were 108 students with no professional education related to engineering or virtual reality. More than 90% of the respondents knew of the term, but they tended to use sense of presence not only to refer to a subjective experience of being there in a mediated environment, but also to refer to an experience that makes them feel excited or as having an extraordinary experience in an actual environment. Factor analysis revealed four sense of presence components: evaluation, impact, activity, and mechanicalness. Events with high presence were likely to be evaluated as preferred, impressive, and dynamic. Furthermore, the participants estimated that distal and proprioceptive sensors such as vision, audition, equilibrium, and kinesthesis were closely related to a sense of presence. These results suggest that sense of presence is not a single and simple concept for non-researchers, but is instead an ambiguous and the multidimensional construct with modality-selectivity. These aspects of sense of presence must be considered in specifying physical factors for high presence and establishing objective measures of sense of presence.
