What Video Can and Cannot Do For Collaboration: A Case Study

International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction

Deictic expressions-such as uttering "this tool" and pointing at a hammer-are important and frequent elements of everyday communication. They are used, for example, when conveying location and orientation information, or when identifying objects. Pointing gestures exist among all known cultures, languages and ethnicities, but they depend on parties to be collocated. When communicating across distances, deictic expressions are usually lost. In this paper, we introduce an approach for communicating deictic pointing across distances by simulating the sender hand posture in the receiver's hand using electrical muscle stimulation (EMS). We describe our prototypical implementation of this approach and report on a lab-based user study evaluating it. Our results indicate that it is technically feasible to use EMS for communicating deictic pointing gestures across distances. Participants in our study were successful in resolving deictic expressions consisting of verbal and gestural components. Furthermore, our results provide initial insights into user behavior, user satisfaction and specific challenges in this context. Our contributions can inform the design of future interfaces for naturally transmitting pointing gestures across distances.

Palgrave Communications, 2019

Collaborative problem-solving, the mutual engagement of people in a coordinated effort to solve a problem together, plays a critical role in the increasingly complex, linguistically diverse, and interconnected world. In particular, being able to communicate in the same languages provides a critical platform for facilitating problem solving among members of a multilingual team. Little research has explored whether sharing the same spoken languages would boost collaborative problem-solving over and beyond the effects of possible confounding variables such as language proficiency, personality, ethnicity, nationality, and non-verbal intelligence. This study manipulated the sharing of same languages by pairing 118 English-speaking bilingual participants either with someone who shares the same two spoken languages as themselves (English-same pair) or with someone who differs in one language (English-different pair). We explored whether such sharing of the same languages enhances collaborative problem-solving in multilingual pairs. Participants completed the Raven's Matrices individually, as well as an insight problem-solving task (Triangle of Coins task) and a divergent thinking task (Mind-mapping) in pairs. English-same pairs performed better than English-different pairs in the insight problem-solving task but not in the divergent thinking task. English-different pairs collaborated (mean number of turns per minute) and communicated (mean number of utterances) more than English-same pairs in the divergent thinking task, although the effect of pair type on communication was fully mediated by a difference in ethnicity within pairs. More collaboration could have been needed between English-different pairs in the divergent thinking task to achieve comparable performance as English-same pairs, possibly due to the different communication processes experienced by English-different pairs. This study provides insights to the role of sharing spoken languages in enhancing collaborative problem-solving in small multilingual groups.

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2014

Learning the performance of physically manipulating instruments in minimally invasive surgeries is an impetus for the development of surgical training simulators. However, an often-overlooked aspect of surgical training is learning how to see the body through various imaging mechanisms. With this study, we address the ways in which surgeons demonstrate and instruct residents in seeing the body during minimally invasive surgical procedures. Drawing on observations and analysis of video recordings of minimally invasive surgical operations, we examine how particular anatomy and movement within the body to see and conceptualize that anatomy are made visible by the instructive practices of the surgeon. We use these findings to discuss further directions for minimally invasive surgical training through mechanisms for making the body visible during situated surgical training and surgical training simulation systems.

Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2021

During the past year we've all spent many hours on videoconference calls, sometimes more than was comfortable. While CHI might not have anticipated a viral-driven surge in videoconferencing, online meetings has been a topic of CHI research for the past 25 years. This is a good time to assess how well our research has matched what this natural experiment is telling us. What did we get right? And what did the field get wrong? The panel, comprised of people who directly witnessed much of this history, will reflect on these questions. We don't expect all to agree with each panelist's conclusions, and we will invite reactions and contributions from the audience as well..

Cross-Cultural Design. Cultural Differences in Everyday Life, 2013

The study of cultural difference is increasingly becoming important in the research of multicultural group work. Most of the existing literatures have focused on the national level of cultural difference (e.g., individualism or collectivism) to explore individual behavior and group performance. There have been few studies identifying the role of individual level of cultural variability (e.g., self-construal) in multicultural group work. This study investigates the relationship between (a) self-construal and individual participation, and (b) selfconstrual and individual decision change in video-mediated multicultural group decision making. In a laboratory experiment, forty-five participants coming from fourteen countries formed ten multicultural groups. Each group solved a preference decision-making task using a group videoconferencing system. The results indicated a negative relationship between interdependent self-construal and individual participation in video-mediated group decision making. The relationship between self-construal and decision change was not found. Recommendations on increasing the participation of highly interdependent members are proposed.

Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 2017

Current videoconferencing systems can be roughly divided into two types: a window-type where a computer display works as a window to reveal a remote partner, and a mirrortype whose display shows the mirrored reflections of both participants. While mirror-type systems enhance the feeling of togetherness by merging the two sites into one display, an inherent problem remains. Despite the mirror metaphor, the partner has no physical body in front of the display. To cope with this incongruence, we placed a partition in front of the display. Across that partition we further also placed a robotic table and a robotic bench that move based on the partner's behavior. The experiments indicated that the table and bench successfully facilitated feeling as if there were the partner's physical body was present at the opposite side of the partition.

Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018

Embodied virtual reality faithfully renders users' movements onto an avatar in a virtual 3D environment, supporting nuanced nonverbal behavior alongside verbal communication. To investigate communication behavior within this medium, we had 30 dyads complete two tasks using a shared visual workspace: negotiating an apartment layout and placing model furniture on an apartment floor plan. Dyads completed both tasks under three different conditions: face-to-face, embodied VR with visible full-body avatars, and no embodiment VR, where the participants shared a virtual space, but had no visible avatars. Both subjective measures of users' experiences and detailed annotations of verbal and nonverbal behavior are used to understand how the media impact communication behavior. Embodied VR provides a high level of social presence with conversation patterns that are very similar to face-to-face interaction. In contrast, providing only the shared environment was generally found to be lonely and appears to lead to degraded communication.

Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2022

When COVID-19 led to mandatory working from home, significant blind spots in supporting the sociality of working life-in the moment and over time-were revealed in enterprise video meetings, and these were a key factor in reports about videoconferencing fatigue. Drawing on a large study (N = 849) of one global technology company's employees' experiences of all-remote video meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, we use a dialectic method to explore the tensions expressed by employees around effectiveness and sociality, as well as their strategies to cope with these tensions. We argue that videoconferencing fatigue arose partly due to work practices and technologies designed with assumptions of steady states and taken-for-granted balances between task and social dimensions of work relationships. Our analysis offers a social lens on videoconferencing fatigue and suggests the need to reconceptualize ideas around designing technologies and practices to enable both effectiveness and sociality in the context of video meetings.

Proceedings of the ... International Conference on Business Excellence, 2022

The new coronavirus disease was first observed in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. A couple of months later it was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as SARS CoV-2 and nominally named COVID-19 (European Council, 2021). In just a few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced individuals all over the world to adapt their behavior, both personally and professionally, social distance becoming a necessity by reducing the spread of the virus (Tang, et al., 2020). These restrictions have resulted in a dramatic increase in the use of technology for remote meetings, including video conferencing tools. And although this process was happening in a mostly unfamiliar environment, due to its necessity and one's incapacity of replacing face-to-face interactions with anything else it has become a day-to-day activity in a matter of weeks. Although there are some particularities as a result of cultural diversity, in Romania the adoption of such tools was in line with what was happening all over the world, although because of the decreased level of digitalization in public administration it was more difficult for some part of the society to adapt. The present study has the objective to reveal what Romanian managers think about virtual conferences versus face-to-face conferences, taking into consideration the period before the COVID-19 pandemic (until March 2020), but also the pandemic period (from March 2020 until January 2022). Data has been collected using in depth interviews with Romanian managers who worked before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that there was a change in one's behavior when having to use only virtual conferences tools, becoming more aware of their time and in general making the most out of it by having a clear agenda for almost all types of virtual meetings. A hybrid solution is seen by most of the managers as being optimal by reducing time lost between face-to-face meetings, but the results also indicate that a full replacement of face-to-face meetings with virtual meetings is not a solution as direct interaction between individuals cannot be replaced with the use of virtual tools.