Media equation theory is closely related to studies of presence. In Lee’s research on the presence phenomena, he categorizes the media equation in two situations: “the automatic application of folk-physics modules to virtual objects” and “the automatic application of folk-psychology modules to virtual social actors stimulating humans”. For the first type of media equation, research has found people continue to pay more attention to big objects in virtual settings since our mindset is trained to believe that big objects are more threatening in real life. In particular, results find participants reports movements on the larger television screen appeared to be faster and experienced a greater sense of movement, led to greater excitement and physiological arousal. Similarly, researches found people have a large tolerance for differences in visual fidelity just as in a real setting, because human naturally sees the world under a peripheral vision field. Lastly, people often pay more attention to moving objects even though they cause no harm in virtual settings, unlike in real life.
