1. Eye Contact as a Determinant of Social Presence in Video Communication Yevgenia Bondareva Lydia Meesters Don Bouwhuis

2. 2 Content Social presence factors Tele-presence videoconferencing system Experimental study Social presence measurement Results and discussion

3. 3 Social 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.

4. 4 Tele-Presence Videoconferencing System

5. 5 back projection

6. 6 An Experimental Study Conditions: Videoconferencing system with direct eye contact Videoconferencing system without direct eye contact Face-to-face communication

7. 7 An Experimental Study Design: Comparison studies Within subjects 15 couples Task: block construction

8. 8 Social Presence Measurement Subjective (ratings, attitudes, questionnaires) Objective (behavioural responses) Goal: to develop and validate behavioural measurement methodology

9. 9 Behavioural 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)

10. 10 Results

11. 11 Results Behavioural measures are effective in discriminating between different communication situations and conditions Subjects communication behaviour is different in VCS with eye contact and VCS without eye contact (ρ0.002)

12. 12 Questions