Audio channel constraints in video-mediated communication

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of two types of audio channels upon the effectiveness of task-based interactions in a video-mediated context (VMC). Forty undergraduates completed a collaborative task (The Map Task) using either a full or half-duplex audio channel. Their performance was compared to face-to-face interactions, taken from the Human Communication Research Centre corpus of Map Task Dialogues. Effects of varying the audio channel were explored by comparing task performance, patterns of speech, and establishment of mutual understanding. Users of the full-duplex VMC made insufficient allowance for the VMC context; they completed the task less accurately than face-to-face participants, and interrupted each other more frequently than other participants. Participants in the half-duplex VMC however performed as well as face-to-face participants. They made sensible adaptations to the constraints imposed by the half-duplex VMC context, producing longer dialogues, with more explicit turn-taking management, and taking greater care in establishing mutual knowledge

Articulating common ground in cooperative work

“…Conversational turns take place more rapidly and utterances are more compact. Thus researchers often rely on measures of communication efficiency to detect the effects of different communication settings [12,13]. We expected to observe similar trends in our experimental setting, with teams becoming more efficient in their communication as common ground increased.…”

“…On average the duration of a turn decreased from 3.3 to 2.7 seconds (t-test: t 11 =5.6, p<.001), and the average number of words per turn dropped from 10 to 7.8 (t-test: t 11 =5.2, p<0.001). These results suggest that speakers became more efficient in delivering their utterances [e.g., 13,12].…”

“…We adapted the Conversation Game Analysis method for our coding process (see [12,15] for prior uses of the method in CMC research). This scheme is used to characterize the communicative functions of dialogue acts (what the speaker is attempting to achieve) rather than their linguistic form or meaning.…”

Videoconferencing design for remote groups

“…Numerous studies have focused on determining how different aspects of videoconferencing environments affect task results and the feelings of the participants, e.g., [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. Some widely accepted results are:…”

“…Basic videoconferencing capabilities were provided by MBone Tools 5 . Robust Audio Tool (RAT) was used for audio transmission and playback.…”