Achieving the feeling of enjoyment from a reading activity might be harder for consumers due to their gradual adaptation to digital media that provide fast and intense experiences.To preserve the reading tradition with the help of digital technologies, we focus on adapting fiction to virtual reality (VR).This study investigates how VR readers perceive differences between narrative absorption and presence, how their individual ability to get absorbed by narratives affects their VR reading experience, and how a visually saturated VR space influences their imagination.We conducted a mixed methods study (n = 42) using our VR reading prototype.The results show that the VR reading experience was perceived as symbiotic between the text and visuals and that the mental imagery of individual readers adapted to the visual style of the VR scene.

Research in multiple fields have examined how video games shape behavior. Specifically, one area of research indicates that prosocial video game play (game play that features helping as a core mechanic) impacts subsequent prosocial behaviors, affect, and accessibility of prosocial thoughts relative to neutral game play with no helping behavior. Exposure time in this past research has varied, so we executed an experiment that both replicates this existing line of research in terms of comparing different games and adds the dimension of exposure time. Differences between the prosocial gaming and control groups were assessed, while correcting for trait altruism and aggression. There were no significant differences between participants in control conditions and those that played the prosocial game, though some variables trended in expected directions. Additionally, exposure time had little impact on participant behavior. Therefore, researchers may not need to be concerned about short-term exposure time variance.

Many people, particularly older adults, are negatively affected by social isolation and loneliness. Robots can facilitate social interaction between persons. In this on-going study, we interview middle and older adults in the US ($n=20$) and Japan ($n=4$) regarding their opinions of socially facilitative robots and how they want robots to assist in their social lives. Participants' desires for robots included robots that could act as an embodied avatar, teleconferencing robots that would be mobile and hands-free, and automated management of their social schedule. Some participants were opposed to the idea of socially facilitative robots, expressed concern regarding robot involvement in human social life, felt that robots were incapable of promoting social interactions between humans, or felt that robots were only for the very elderly and disabled and could not currently assist them. Emerging differences include that thus far, only US participants expressed a desire for pet robots or organizational robots, and all four current Japanese participants expressed the belief that robots were for the very elderly and disabled.