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This paper examines the relatively unexplored topic of changes in the sense of presence corresponding to individual development from early childhood to old age. How does presence change over the lifespan and how can presence-modulating interactive environments be designed to accommodate the needs of different age groups in the light of these changes? To address these questions, we adopt an existing framework for theorising about relevant aspects of the sense of presence, emphasising the distinction between presence and absence based on attentional focus, and the role of presence as a link between intentions and actions. We explore changes in presence and absence over the course of the human lifespan, and in relation to various psychological and cognitive problems. This includes a consideration of the significance of age-specific changes in levels of consciousness, as revealed through patterns of waking, sleeping and dreaming. Finally, we explore the implications of our position for the design of interactive environments, especially as applied to psychotherapy, and to cognitive training and development.

This randomized controlled study (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02007616) investigated the maintenance of training effects of 20 1-hr non-action video game training sessions with selected games from a commercial package on several age-declining cognitive functions and subjective wellbeing after a 3-month no-contact period. Two groups of cognitively normal older adults participated in both the post-training (posttest) and the present follow-up study, the experimental group who received training and the control group who attended several meetings with the research team during the study but did not receive training. Groups were similar at baseline on demographics, vocabulary, global cognition, and depression status. Significant improvements in the trained group, and no variation in the control group had been previously found at posttest, in processing speed, attention and visual recognition memory, as well as in two dimensions of subjective wellbeing. In the current study, improvement from baseline to 3 months follow-up was found only in wellbeing (Affection and Assertivity dimensions) in the trained group whereas there was no change in the control group. Previous significant improvements in processing speed, attention and spatial memory become non-significant after the 3-month interval. Training older adults with non-action video games enhanced aspects of cognition just after training but this effect disappeared after a 3-month no-contact follow-up period. Cognitive plasticity can be induced in older adults by training, but to maintain the benefits periodic boosting sessions would be necessary.

Age-related cognitive and brain declines can result in functional deterioration in many cognitive domains, dependency, and dementia. A major goal of aging research is to investigate methods that help to maintain brain health, cognition, independent living and wellbeing in older adults. This randomized controlled study investigated the effects of 20 1-h non-action video game training sessions with games selected from a commercially available package (Lumosity) on a series of age-declined cognitive functions and subjective wellbeing. Two groups of healthy older adults participated in the study, the experimental group who received the training and the control group who attended three meetings with the research team along the study. Groups were similar at baseline on demographics, vocabulary, global cognition, and depression status. All participants were assessed individually before and after the intervention, or a similar period of time, using neuropsychological tests and laboratory tasks to investigate possible transfer effects. The results showed significant improvements in the trained group, and no variation in the control group, in processing speed (choice reaction time), attention (reduction of distraction and increase of alertness), immediate and delayed visual recognition memory, as well as a trend to improve in Affection and Assertivity, two dimensions of the Wellbeing Scale. Visuospatial working memory (WM) and executive control (shifting strategy) did not improve. Overall, the current results support the idea that training healthy older adults with non-action video games will enhance some cognitive abilities but not others.

This conceptual chapter outlines three stages in the development of interactive presence, and outlines some possibilities and challenges raised by each, and by their combination. The first stage, presence via altered embodiment, refers to the way technology allows us to experience the world with modified or enhanced senses. The second stage, via expanded embodiment, refers to technology pushing the envelope of the mental body in which one feels present, out beyond the physical body. Finally, distributed embodiment refers to how the sense of being present in the world can be separated from that of ownership of a particular body, through the development of new approaches to deploying the technologies of virtual realization. We suggest that presence is the yardstick of embodiment from an experiential perspective. If you cannot feel presence, you are not embodied in the world.

Western societies are confronted with a number of challenges caused by the increasing number of older citizens. One important aspect is the need and wish of older people to live as long as possible in their own home and maintain an independent life. As people grew older, their social networks disperse, with friends and families moving to other parts of town, other cities or even countries. Additionally, people become less mobile with age, leading to less active participation in societal life. Combined, this normal, age-related development leads to increased loneliness and social isolation of older people, with negative effects on mental and physical health of those people. In the AGNES project, a home-based system has been developed that allows connecting elderly with their families, friends and other significant people over the Internet. As most older people have limited experience with computers and often special requirements on technology, one focus of AGNES was to develop with the users novel technological means for interacting with their social network. The resulting system uses ambient displays, tangible interfaces and wearable devices providing ubiquitous options for interaction with the network, and secondary sensors for additionally generating carefully chosen information on the person to be relayed to significant persons. Evaluations show that the chosen modalities for interaction are well adopted by the users. Further it was found that use of the AGNES system had positive effects on the mental state of the users, compared to the control group without the technology.

We discuss issues relating to presence arising from the recent evolution of tangible interaction techniques as an alternative interaction paradigm to the familiar WIMP-based Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The intersection of sensory, cognitive and also emotional aspects in such interfaces takes us a significant step further than GUI techniques. We introduce our concept of Tangible Presence in Blended Reality Space, and its study as an emerging weaving of HCI and presence research. An experimental study is then described, which examined the influence of three key factors in the way blended realities may be implemented: tangibility, viewpoint and avatar identity. The study examined the effect of manipulations of these factors on rated presence and self-presence. Our findings emphasize the importance of tangibility for presence, but suggest that presence and self-presence are unrelated phenomena. Finally, as critical concerns in future work to design and implement blended reality spaces for a variety of purposes, context sensitivity and usability issues are discussed.