‘Rather than seeing social presence as a partial replication of face-to-face communication, we should more generally see social presence as a simulation of another intelligence. The simulaiton is run in the body and mind of the perceiver, and models the internal experience of some other moving, expressive body. It is a simulation because the simulation occurs whether or not the moving object has intelligence or intentionality, whether the “other” is a moving human being or an animation composed of nothing more than moving patterns of ink. The definition above suggests that social presence aplies to the mediated experience of all forms of “intelligence.” This perceived intelligence might be another human, a non-human intelligence such as an anmial, a form of artificial intelligence, an imagined alien or a god. (Biocca 1997, original emphasis)

References