Social Presence in Virtual Reality: Definitions, Theories, Studies, and Uses

This paper aims to provide the reader with a better understanding of the concept of social presence and how it is studied and applied in virtual reality. The first section is dedicated to exploring the definitions and theories of social presence that have been used throughout the years. The second section is dedicated to summarizing the findings from different research
studies involving social presence and virtual humans. The last two sections cover real world examples of how social presence functions in virtual reality as well as possible future uses. The paper then concludes with remarks about the performance of virtual reality in relation to social presence and future steps to be taken.