Assignment #8 - Option 2

(I find it ironic that in an assignment discussing — at least partially — why no one uses videoconferencing, one person chose the option to use the medium).

In this article, Kraut et. al focus on the way people use visual information to enhance/improve communication in collaborative physical tasks. Webcams are rarely used compared to other forms of communication, and this paper looked at how it can improve to become a better — and potentially more popular — tool.

According to this paper, visual information has two different categories: situational awareness and conversational grounding. Situational awareness is the monitoring of other participants’ actions to regulate the task using actions. It involves thought about the present and future of the direction of the communication based on the visual information. Conversational grounding is the idea that certain information becomes grounded over the course of the communication and people tend to use these grounded actions more. The study found that video system did not improve performance (for completing a task), but did change its users’ actions and thoughts about the task. In terms of track1 and 2 signals, the system created more track 2 signals than excepted, normally a sign of the establishment of grounding, but in this case likely because of the removal of certain cues through the technology. The research showed that communication combining audio and visual information did not result in better performance than mere audio communication.

I think there are a couple of things that could be further studied in this study. First of all, the constraints of the camera — stationary, location in the room, zoom, etc… — could have a major impact on the type of information people gain and even what information is grounded. Secondly, I think gender was an important factor that was somewhat overlooked. Gender can play a major influence in communication because it can effect how people communicate (across gender, with mixed gendered/same gendered groups, etc…). Males and females tend to have different speech patterns, not to mention very distinct audio and visual information.

I also have a few questions. Would the outcome of this experiment change if the participants didn’t have to complete a task but had to do something more “social” instead, such as talk about their life (that topic was arbitrary). Did/would gender have an effect on the outcomes? Could eye tracking be possible (without being too invasive) to see if it affected collaboration?