Eye Contact as a Determinant of Social Presence in Video

Communication

Yevgenia BondarevaYevgenia Bondareva

Lydia MeestersLydia Meesters

Don BouwhuisDon Bouwhuis

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ContentContent

• Social presence factors

• Tele-presence videoconferencing system

• Experimental study

• Social presence measurement

• Results and discussion

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Social Presence FactorsSocial Presence Factors

• Wide visual field

• Direct eye contact

• Life-size image of remote participants (body language)

• High resolution visual field

• Object colours are perceived accurately

• Audio with high sound-noise ratio

• Directional sound field

• Minimization of the video and audio signals latency

• Shared working space.

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Tele-Presence Videoconferencing Tele-Presence Videoconferencing SystemSystem

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Tele-Presence Videoconferencing Tele-Presence Videoconferencing SystemSystem

back projection

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An Experimental StudyAn Experimental Study

Conditions:

• Videoconferencing system with direct eye contact

• Videoconferencing system without direct eye contact

• Face-to-face communication

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An Experimental StudyAn Experimental Study

Design:

• Comparison studies

• Within subjects

• 15 couples

• Task: block construction

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Social Presence MeasurementSocial Presence Measurement

• Subjective (ratings, attitudes, questionnaires)

• Objective (behavioural responses)

Goal: to develop and validate behavioural measurement methodology

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Behavioural measuresBehavioural measures

• Facial expressions: (smiling, frowning)

• Head/body movements: (nodding, shrugging)

• Gestures: (means of expression, pointing)

• Vocal cues: (mumbling, "uhhh?", "mmmm“)

• Laughing and joking• Eye contact: (frequency and duration)

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ResultsResults

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ResultsResults

• Behavioural measures are effective in discriminating between different communication situations and conditions

• Subject’s communication behaviour is different in VCS with eye contact and VCS without eye contact (ρ≤0.002)

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QuestionsQuestions