Immersive Interfaces for Engagement and Learning: Cognitive Implications

Immersive Virtual Environments are distinct from other types of multimedia learning environments. But, if immersion defined the subjective impression that one is participating in a comprehensive and a realistic experience, immersive-ness is generally defined only from a systemic point of view (e.g., capacity to track users' movements, facial expressions and gestures, quality of appearance, combination of multi-sensory information, design of the virtual world). Moreover, nowadays, it does not exist a robust theoretical framework to describe and to predict immersive-ness from a user-point of view. So this paper is aiming to assume that (a) immersive-ness should be defined from a cognitive user point of view, and that (b) the cognitive architecture called MHP/RT (for Model Human Processor with Realtime Constraints) is relevant to understand and to predict immersive-ness. After a presentation of the MHP/RT model and the distributed memory system related to conscious and unconscious processes, we present the conditions necessary to produce an "immersive experience" for the user, and a case study is described as an example. Theoretical and methodological perspectives are discussed.