Did We Just Travel to the Past? Building and Evaluating With Cultural Presence Different Modes of VR-Mediated Experiences in Virtual Archaeology

A groundbreaking study reveals that virtual reality (VR) can effectively recreate the experience of traveling to the past, particularly when incorporating content meaningfulness, responsive characters, enhanced interaction, and multisensory realism. Researchers built six distinct VR reconstructions of Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic site in Turkey, and evaluated them using a novel framework based on Cultural Presence. The findings demonstrate that these elements significantly contribute to achieving successful VR-mediated experiences, offering new insights into how virtual archaeology can bridge the gap between past and present.

Pujol-Tost, L. (2019). Did We Just Travel to the Past? Building and Evaluating With Cultural Presence Different Modes of VR-Mediated Experiences in Virtual Archaeology. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 12(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3230678