What is "Extended Reality"?
Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, and Extended Reality are common terms used to describe how technologies create or alter reality. Due to the variety of technologies, constant new developments, and the influence of marketing, these terms are often used inconsistently. This has led to conceptual confusion and unclear distinctions. We aim to provide a simple overview here.
Extended Reality (XR) is an umbrella term that describes technologies combining the real world with the virtual world. This primarily includes Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). Between these two technologies lies a continuum defined by their technical characteristics. Mixed Reality (MR) can be understood as an intermediate form within this continuum, lying in the overlap between AR and VR.
The Three Main Types of XR Technologies
Augmented Reality
AR adds digital information to the real world. Imagine looking through a transparent pair of glasses and seeing additional information or objects integrated into the real world.
Example: Microsoft HoloLens
Mixed Reality
MR combines elements of AR and VR technologies by integrating virtual objects into the real world and allowing them to interact with the physical environment. Often, a VR headset is used, which displays a video image of reality and enhances it with virtual objects.
Example: Meta Quest
Virtual Reality
VR creates a completely virtual environment. When you wear a VR headset, you are fully immersed in a computer-generated world that has nothing to do with the real world around you.
Example: Meta Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive
Common Manufacturers and Devices
There are various manufacturers of XR technologies. Among the most well-known are Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) with their current line of “Quest” devices. Meta (then still Facebook) bought the company Oculus in 2014, which kicked off the VR hype with their development of the affordable VR headset “Oculus Rift.” Another important device in the VR field is “Vive,” developed and produced jointly by HTC and the game manufacturer Valve (known for its gaming platform “Steam”). In the AR field, Microsoft’s HoloLens is especially well-known and is particularly used in industrial settings. There are many other notable companies like Lenovo, Pico, and Magic Leap, which develop their own products for specific use cases. However, these devices fundamentally operate in the same way.
Immersion and Presence
Two key concepts are of great importance in research on the effects of VR on human experiences and sensations: immersion and presence. These terms frequently appear in the relevant literature and have also made their way into the marketing language of consumer VR systems.
Immersion is generally understood as the degree of user engagement with a medium. In this context, immersion refers to how much users perceive the fictional content presented in the medium as real. Users no longer perceive the medium itself, so the actual content becomes real to them. Based on this consideration, the concept of immersion is not only valid for VR but can be applied to all possible media forms such as books, films, or games. The number and quality of a medium’s immersive characteristics influence how strongly users feel transported into the fictional world. Therefore, it becomes clear that immersion can vary in intensity and can be understood as a continuum.
In VR research, the term Presence is used alongside immersion to describe users’ experiences when using a VR system. Presence is often described as the feeling of “being there,” in the virtual environment. Users feel as if they are actually in the fictional world, interacting with it and forgetting the physical reality around them. While immersion describes the objective characteristics of a medium that distract users from the real world, presence describes the result of this immersion process and is thus a subjective experience. In other words, immersion is a prerequisite for experiencing presence.
References
Lombard, Matthew, and Theresa B. Ditton. 1997. „At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence“. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 3(2). doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00072.x. (Open Access)
Rauschnabel, Philipp A., Reto Felix, Chris Hinsch, Hamza Shahab, and Florian Alt. 2022. „What Is XR? Towards a Framework for Augmented and Virtual Reality“. Computers in Human Behavior 133:107289. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2022.107289. (Open Access)
Slater, Mel, Martin Usoh, and Anthony Steed. 1994. „Depth of Presence in Virtual Environments“. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 3(2):130–40.
