## 1 Introduction  
Sense of presence, a central element in the human experience in virtual environments (VE) [1, 2] has been widely studied. It has been defined as a psychological state or a subjective perception where technology mediates the experience of the individual, but the environment is perceived as if that technology were not involved [3]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [4] described it as the \"perceptual illusion of non-mediation,\" in which the technology and the external physical environment fade from the user's phenomenological consciousness. This \"illusion\" implies continuous (real-time) responses of the human sensory, cognitive and affective processing systems to objects and entities in a person's environment. Sense of presence is a multidimensional concept [3, 5]; that is, different types exist. Comparatively little is known about what types do exist, but scholars have proposed several dimensions (in many cases non-orthogonal or overlapping) [3]. Researchers are beginning to empirically evaluate the validity of some of these dimensions. Very often there has been confusion about how to study presence and its determinants and consequences. Among the most recognized dimensions of presence are spatial presence, co-presence, social presence and self-presence [3, 6]. Of these, spatial presence has been defined as \"a sense of being there\" [3]. However, this conceptualization has sometimes been crossed with the general notion of presence, also sometimes described as the subjective experience of being in a place or environment, even when one is physically elsewhere [7, 8]. Understanding the factors that modulate the subjective experience of presence is essential for disciplines that study human responses using virtual environments [9]. One field where this is particularly important is research into human behavior in architectural and urban spaces. The human experience in built environments has been defined as a mental state affected by environmental variables, reflecting in psychological, physiological and emotional responses [10]. A key challenge is the creation of controlled contexts that will allow researchers to quantify the impact of architectural design on that experience [10; 11]. Virtual environments allow researchers to create controlled simulations of everyday situations, thus accessing contexts where physical presence is not possible [12]. They also make it possible to test proposals more quickly and economically than do physical models [10; 13]. The versatility of virtual modeling tools facilitates the simple manipulation of variables, either individually or together, which improves experimental controls and the understanding of cause-effect relationships [10]. The effectiveness of virtual environments is commonly evaluated through the sense of presence they evoke in the user [7; 14]. [PERSON] [15] theorized that \"complete presence\" is achieved when there is equivalence in sensory and cognitive experiences between the simulated and physical worlds. The human experience in the physical world is inherently multisensory [16]; therefore, it is natural that the number and consistency of sensory outputs in a simulated environment are determinants of sense of presence [4; 17; 18]. However, several authors have argued that presence is determined by two general categories of variables, that is, media characteristics and user characteristics [1; 4; 19]. Media characteristics are display properties (e.g., screen resolution), content (e.g., objects, actors and events that make up the environmental context) and the ability to interact with and modify the medium [17]. User profile characteristics range over sociodemographic variables, perceptual, cognitive and motor skills, previous experiences and personality differences [1]. Some researchers have begun to examine the relationships between these media and user characteristics in terms of presence and the attributes of virtual environments.