A Systematic Review of Social Presence: Definition, Antecedents, and Implications

“Studies suggest that higher levels of social presence are more beneficial in equivocal contexts wherein there is no “correct” outcome, such as negotiations (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Garau et al., 2003).”

“Incontrast to immersion, presence is the subjective experience of actually being in the mediated virtual environment (Slater and Wilbur, 1997; Witmer and Singer, 1998; Walther and Parks, 2002).”

“…with a virtual cat, view virtual humans in pain CA Canada Short et al., 1976; Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Engage in a video call with a remote participant using a telepresence robot AP Korea Choi et al., 2001 Short et al., 1976; Lombard, 1995 affordance(s) that influenced perceptions of social presence.”

“Telepresence can be defined as “the extent to which one feels present in the mediated environment, rather than in the immediate physical environment” (Steuer, 1992, p. 75).”

“Walther (1996) later expanded this theory to posit that people who communicate via text-based CMC platforms could, in some cases, achieve even higher levels of social presence than FtF interactants by carefully selecting which facets of themselves they wish to reveal (i.e., hyperpersonal model of…”

“When the perception of telepresence is strong, people should no longer be aware that their experiences are being mediated through technology (Lombard and Ditton, 1997).”

“William Gibson famously described cyberspace as a “consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation” ( Gibson, 1984, p. 51), portraying the social nature of “stepping through a barrier” (Slater and Wilbur, 1997, p. 2) into the virtual environment.”

“One significant concept that was not included due to this criterion was plausibility illusion (Slater, 2009).”

“In contrast to these medium-centric views of social presence, Walther (1992) argued that individuals are capable of adapting to different communication media, and can thus achieve their communication goals accordingly.”

“…al., 2013 Gerhard et al., 2001; Bailenson et al., 2005 Interact with a virtual cat, view virtual humans in pain CA Canada Short et al., 1976; Nowak and Biocca, 2003 Engage in a video call with a remote participant using a telepresence robot AP Korea Choi et al., 2001 Short et al., 1976; Lombard,…”

“Social presence refers to “the feeling of being there with a real person” [3], [24], and is higher when using immersive platforms compared to non-immersive ones, such as desktop platforms [19].”

“It is one dimension of the sense of presence [12] and can influence the socio-group behavior of users and, thus, the collaboration and learning outcomes of educational activities [5].”

“Although social presence can evaluate the level of the feeling of “being there together" and positively correlates to enjoyment, trust, and pro-social behaviors [41, 43], it does not fully capture one’s sense of centrality in social interactions.”

“Apart from technological modality, contextual properties such as social cues and agency also influence social presence [18].”

“Social presence increase the sense of belonging of members to the community, which drive members to share his opinion, emotional expression, and continuous discussion, even though the discussion conducted without physical interaction (Oh et al., 2018).”

“One could think of this as another angle to exploring the concept of “social presence” [34], as well as belief-desire-intent (BDI) models to create artificial “personalities” for autonomous agents [35].”

“Assignment content and instructions, which are important for supporting online learning (Oh et al. 2018, Salmon 2000), contribute to cognitive presence.”

“…the media-based virtual communication environment, it seems to be necessary to discuss how the social and psychological factors of individual internet broadcasting users might influence one’s social presence experience in addition to the technical attributes (Hwang & Park, 2007; Oh et al., 2018).”

“This trait has been implied in discussions of machines and social presence [70], [74], [75], mind [4], [49], and techno-animism [76].”

“A medium that offers more social presence is regarded as more sociable, personal and warm, in comparison to one with lower levels of social presence (Oh, Bailenson, and Welch 2018), where warmth is defined as a medium ’ s ability to convey feelings of human contact, sociability, and sensitivity…”

“Unlike the VR avatars popular in the research community [7], AR avatars present in the real view of users, making their presence an important factor in real life human social behavior.”

“…can evoke spatial presence (the perception of “being there” or something “being here”; Slater, 2009), social presence (the experience of “being with” another life or mind; Oh et al., 2018), and embodiment (the sense of co-location, ownership and control over a virtual body; Maselli & Slater, 2013).”

“…be enhanced through task design, immediate feedback, and progressive scaffolding (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Ryan & Deci, 2000), whereas relatedness can be strengthened through interactions with empathetic virtual characters and the creation of social presence (Klimmt et al., 2009; Oh et al., 2018).”

“…and intrinsic identification that audiences demonstrate toward anime, comics, and games cultural elements, reflecting their psychological attachment to and behavioral engagement with Japanese-originated popular culture aesthetics, narratives, and community practices (Yee, 2006; Oh et al., 2018).”

“Prior research has shown that social presence is influenced by multiple factors, including the communication medium, visual and behavioral cues, situational context, and individual differences [58].”

“As outlined in Presence theory (Behm-Morawitz, 2013 ; Oh et al., 2018 ), different properties of technology target each aspect of interactivity differently, which is shown as the specific dimensions of presence, such as spatial, social, or self-presence.”

“Research on social presence suggests that a shared background can enhance the sense of unity among participants [36].”

“This element offers instant interaction, for example, asking and receiving instant feedback, which enhances the shopping experience (Khoi and Le 2024; Oh, Bailenson, and Welch 2018).”

“This result is consistent with social presence theory, which suggests that users are more likely to form positive relational evaluations when they perceive artificial agents as socially “real” (Kim et al., 2013; McLean et al., 2021; Oh et al., 2018).”

“These have proven effective in enhancing social presence [9], engagement [10], and user interaction.”

“Oh et al., 2018).”

“It encompasses various dimensions, such as the agent’s level of responsiveness and the user’s sense of “being there” with the agent, which is akin to concepts like electronic propinquity (Goble & Edwards, 2018; Oh et al., 2018; Spence et al., 2014).”

“…findings suggest that prolonged time spent in immersive virtual worlds increases social presence and psychological detachment (Boji´c et al., 2025; Oh et al., 2018a), while high interactivity and aesthetic appeal serve as peripheral cues that promote emotional involvement and sustained…”

“…denotes a student’s ability to project their characteristics into the community and present themselves as ‘real people’ (Garri-son et al., 2000; Oh et al., 2018); and (iii) cognitive presence, characterised by the capacity to construct meaning through sustained communication (Garrison et al.,…”

“…virtual and physical worlds, MR can create co-presence illusions–the impression that remote collaborators are present in the same physical space [11, 14]– and bring back the real world’s physicality, which the computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) and proxemics literature highlighted as…”

“The results of previous studies on the effects of realistic visual embodiment on perceived social presence [76], co-presence [3], and emotional connection [55] during virtual interactions, however, did not cover ECAs using non-synthetic photorealistic videos as their representation.”

“Users can express genuine emotions through realistic avatars, thereby fostering higher levels of trust and intimacy in their interactions with others (Oh et al., 2018).”

“However, individuals with a high tendency to avoid social interactions generally have a lower perception of social presence than others (Oh et al., 2018).”

“A personal connection is often referred to as social presence, and in online buying environments, the human touch can help to build personalized communication while building relationships and trust [8].”

“Echoing earlier work on the positive impact of social presence on interpersonal interactions (Oh, Bailenson, and Welch 2018), participants reported more positive networking experiences when they were immersed in the virtual environment using HMDs than using less immersive platforms.”

“Some of the factors shown to increase social presence include immersion, photorealism, interactivity, depth cues, identity cues etc. [8].”

“…virtual representations significantly contributes to a sense of presence, an experience characterized by three interconnected dimensions [31, 50]: firstly, tele-presence, which engenders the sensation of existing within a mediated space [65]; secondly, self-presence, or the perception of…”

“The literature does not have consensus on the effects of perceived agency [Oh et al. 2018].”

“Presence is the subjective experience of these users in the mediated virtual environment [Oh et al ., 2018].”

“Cyberspace is considered to have a stronger social presence than other technology-mediated communication forms, offering visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory cues[10][18].”

“Social presence is a critical construct when simulating interactions with other beings in a virtual environment, as in its absence other actors are merely perceived as artificial entities rather than sentient beings [12].”

“Thus, the feeling of spatial and social presence is generated, i.e., the feeling of being oneself in another place or being spatially together with remote people [5, 6].”

“Advancements in modality, visual representation, interactivity, haptic feedback, depth cues, audio quality and display are intensifying the immersion of VR technologies, and by proxy, the feeling of presence users enjoy [15].”

“Virtual reality (VR) technology has advanced significantly in recent years, resulting in widespread applications [16, 40, 70], novel research endeavours [19, 43, 45], and promising learning opportunities [17, 48, 52].”

“Social presence is de�ned as a sense of “being with” other beings in a shared space (Oh et al., 2018).”

“Oh et al.’s (2018) findings showed that social presence positively correlates to enjoyment and trust. As for Yassien et al. (2020), they found that self-embodiment (i.e. the users’ feeling of owning their virtual representation or avatar) and non-verbal cues are of paramount importance for designing an engaging social…”

“Oh et al. (2018) found that factors such as technological characteristics (e.g. interactivity), contextual characteristics (e.g. physical proximity), and individual characteristics (e.g. gender) contribute to the experience of social presence.”

“Both perspectives underscore that media technologies and communication strategies substantially shape social presence [66].”

“The use of avatars supports their perceptions of embodiment, spatial presence, and social presence [4, 36, 45], allowing them to express themselves in an embodied manner.”

“Drawing on social presence theory, avatar realism may strengthen users’ perception that they are being observed by socially meaningful others, thereby increasing the salience of evaluative cues in the VR public speaking task (Oh et al., 2018).”

“At the same time, interaction features must compensate for the reduced richness of non-verbal cues in avatar-mediated environments [106].”

“While previous studies [1, 33, 46] on ECAs explored the effects of different visual embodiments, their datasets did not include embodiment through non-synthetic photorealistic videos.”

“For collaborative contexts, immersive VR may further strengthen these effects by increasing presence and social presence [53], which are associated with higher engagement and sustained attention [57, 67].”

“Even simple visual signals like emojis can significantly enhance social presence [62], and studies identify identity cues as a key antecedent of this effect [61].”

“This emphasis reveals that professional creative collaboration requires heightened social awareness encompassing cognitive, affective, aesthetic, and expressive communication dimensions beyond traditional social presence frameworks [12, 83].”

“In their review, the positive effects of higher audio fidelity on social presence were summarized [10].”

“We draw from both social presence and co-presence literature to motivate this work, given their close association and frequent interchangeable use in prior research [45].”

“Various studies have pinpointed key factors that affect perceived social presence in communication technologies [61, 77].”

“In contrast, social presence is evaluated from a social cognition perspective, emphasizing the user’s ability to interpret others’ intentions, emotions, and behaviors in a mediated environment [12].”

“…a virtual divide (e.g., a monitor), altering attentional demands (Chuang and Hsu, 2023; Snijdewint and Scheepers, 2023), perception of implicit social cues (Frith and Frith, 2008; Oh et al., 2018; Sharan et al., 2022), and cognitive workload (Luebstorf et al., 2023; Nurmi and Pakarinen, 2023).”

“To refine the conceptualization of social presence in avatar-mediated environments, this study integrates the notion of “embodied social presence” (Biocca, 2003; Oh et al., 2018), which emphasizes how nonverbal cues (e.g. avatar gaze, gesture, proximity) contribute to co-presence.”

“Together, these rich social design features present what other users select and interact with, fostering a sense of social presence among peers [64].”