A Capacity Limited, Cognitive Constructionist Model of Virtual Presence

The Capacity Limited, Cognitive Constructionist (CLCC) model of presence is proposed as an information processing model of presence, and is shown to have more theoretical power than extant models of presence. The CLCC model defines information processing paths between attention, working memory, declarative memory and procedural memory, which operate to create and maintain a semantic context or bias. Bottom-up information entering the sensory cortices is filtered by attention into working memory where it forms temporary structures encoding the subject’s experience of the VE. These temporary structures are also contributed to by top-down information, which arises from active knowledge clusters in declarative memory. This interaction of top-down and bottom-up data gives the entire model a semantic bias which attempts to keep the subject’s construction of the environment semantically coherent.