Fantasy, realism, and attention in virtual reality: An exploratory mixed-methods study of coherence factors and player judgments

Abstract

Designers of virtual reality experiences routinely balance fantasy and realism to sustain the sense of being there while supporting performance and engagement. Yet we have limited factor-specific evidence about where fantasy attracts attention, when it taxes performance, and how users judge plausibility across different components of a virtual world. This paper integrates two exploratory studies from a dissertation project. Study 1 was a remote, between-groups experiment (n = 20) that introduced a single fantastical physics element during a dual-task activity and measured attentional performance and viewing behavior. Study 2 was a qualitative, video-cued recall study (n = 8) with semi-structured interviews examining how players judged realism along four coherence factors proposed in the presence literature: scenario, physics, virtual body, and virtual entities. Quantitatively, participants exposed to a localized physics fantasy showed reduced secondary-task accuracy in a directional test, and time spent looking at the fantastical object was positively associated with errors. Qualitatively, participants expressed two modes of judgment consistent with narrative psychology: external realism, comparing with the physical world and prior experience, and narrative realism, evaluating coherence within the story world. Physics was predominantly judged through external realism and invited testing behavior, virtual entities were judged through narrative realism and tolerated more fantasy when socially responsive, the virtual body elicited a dynamic blend that shifted over time, and scenario judgments prioritized internal style consistency over realism. We discuss how these converging findings inform the design of plausible fantasy in VR, emphasizing timing, justification, and factor allocation of non-real-world-like elements. We present these results as exploratory evidence intended to stimulate confirmatory research and to offer pragmatic heuristics for interaction designers.

Keywords: Fantasy, Realism, Attention, Plausibility, Virtual Reality, Player Perception.

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007658