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Communication Apprehension and Eye Contact Anxiety in Video Conferences Involving Teleoperated Robot Avatars: A Subjective Evaluation Study

Communication apprehension (CA), defined as anxiety in oral communication, and anxiety in eye contact (AEC), defined as the discomfort felt in communication while being stared at by others, limit communication effectiveness. In this study, we examined whether using a teleoperated robot avatar in a v...

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Autores principales: Mehmood, Faisal, Mahzoon, Hamed, Yoshikawa, Yuichiro, Ishiguro, Hiroshi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8602855/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34805293
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.758177
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author Mehmood, Faisal
Mahzoon, Hamed
Yoshikawa, Yuichiro
Ishiguro, Hiroshi
author_facet Mehmood, Faisal
Mahzoon, Hamed
Yoshikawa, Yuichiro
Ishiguro, Hiroshi
author_sort Mehmood, Faisal
collection PubMed
description Communication apprehension (CA), defined as anxiety in oral communication, and anxiety in eye contact (AEC), defined as the discomfort felt in communication while being stared at by others, limit communication effectiveness. In this study, we examined whether using a teleoperated robot avatar in a video teleconference provides communication support to people with CA and AEC. We propose a robotic telecommunication system in which a user has two options to produce utterance for own responses in online interaction with interviewer i.e., either by a robot avatar that faces the interviewer, or by self. Two imagination-based experiments were conducted, in which a total of 400 participants were asked to watch videos for interview scenes with or without the proposed system; 200 participants for each experiment. The participants then evaluated their impressions by imagining that they were the interviewee. In the first experiment, a video conference with the proposed system was compared with an ordinary video conference, where the interviewer and interviewee faced each other. In the second experiment, it was compared with an ordinary video conference where the interviewer’s attentional focus was directed away from the interviewee. A significant decrease in the expected CA and AEC of participants with the proposed system was observed in both experiments, whereas a significant increase in the expected sense of being attended (SoBA) was observed in the second experiment. This study contributes to the literature in terms of examining the expected impact of using a teleoperated robot avatar for better video conferences, especially for supporting individuals with CA and AEC.
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spelling pubmed-86028552021-11-20 Communication Apprehension and Eye Contact Anxiety in Video Conferences Involving Teleoperated Robot Avatars: A Subjective Evaluation Study Mehmood, Faisal Mahzoon, Hamed Yoshikawa, Yuichiro Ishiguro, Hiroshi Front Robot AI Robotics and AI Communication apprehension (CA), defined as anxiety in oral communication, and anxiety in eye contact (AEC), defined as the discomfort felt in communication while being stared at by others, limit communication effectiveness. In this study, we examined whether using a teleoperated robot avatar in a video teleconference provides communication support to people with CA and AEC. We propose a robotic telecommunication system in which a user has two options to produce utterance for own responses in online interaction with interviewer i.e., either by a robot avatar that faces the interviewer, or by self. Two imagination-based experiments were conducted, in which a total of 400 participants were asked to watch videos for interview scenes with or without the proposed system; 200 participants for each experiment. The participants then evaluated their impressions by imagining that they were the interviewee. In the first experiment, a video conference with the proposed system was compared with an ordinary video conference, where the interviewer and interviewee faced each other. In the second experiment, it was compared with an ordinary video conference where the interviewer’s attentional focus was directed away from the interviewee. A significant decrease in the expected CA and AEC of participants with the proposed system was observed in both experiments, whereas a significant increase in the expected sense of being attended (SoBA) was observed in the second experiment. This study contributes to the literature in terms of examining the expected impact of using a teleoperated robot avatar for better video conferences, especially for supporting individuals with CA and AEC. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-11-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8602855/ /pubmed/34805293 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.758177 Text en Copyright © 2021 Mehmood, Mahzoon, Yoshikawa and Ishiguro. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Robotics and AI
Mehmood, Faisal
Mahzoon, Hamed
Yoshikawa, Yuichiro
Ishiguro, Hiroshi
Communication Apprehension and Eye Contact Anxiety in Video Conferences Involving Teleoperated Robot Avatars: A Subjective Evaluation Study
title Communication Apprehension and Eye Contact Anxiety in Video Conferences Involving Teleoperated Robot Avatars: A Subjective Evaluation Study
title_full Communication Apprehension and Eye Contact Anxiety in Video Conferences Involving Teleoperated Robot Avatars: A Subjective Evaluation Study
title_fullStr Communication Apprehension and Eye Contact Anxiety in Video Conferences Involving Teleoperated Robot Avatars: A Subjective Evaluation Study
title_full_unstemmed Communication Apprehension and Eye Contact Anxiety in Video Conferences Involving Teleoperated Robot Avatars: A Subjective Evaluation Study
title_short Communication Apprehension and Eye Contact Anxiety in Video Conferences Involving Teleoperated Robot Avatars: A Subjective Evaluation Study
title_sort communication apprehension and eye contact anxiety in video conferences involving teleoperated robot avatars: a subjective evaluation study
topic Robotics and AI
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8602855/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34805293
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.758177
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