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Eye Contact Will Influence Man-Machine Interaction
atari_kid writes "ScienceDaily is running a story about a researcher findings on the importance of eye contact in group communications. More importantly, the findings show how the amount of eye contact one receives in a group will effect the number of turns one can take in a discussion. What is interesting about the study his how it will effect the design of the future communication devices, like for example: 'Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) which support communication between people and machines.' The research findings will be also used to facilitate user interactions with devices like PDA's and cell phones. I wonder if the findings could explain why the 'beautiful people' have such influence on the mass media."
So this means that if I wanted to become really dominant in a conversation, I could bribe a couple of the participators to look at me once in a while, and rarely at my "opponent"? Hmmm suddenly I realize that a sales team should never ever consist of under ten people...
I am a rehabilitation/social worker for the blind and visually impaired... a great percentage of the world population has eye conditions, in which eye contact is difficult as a result of poor focus, strabismus, to name a few. When communicating with someone who is visually impaired, many other key stimulus must be realized. A blind or visually impaired person may show body language suggesting their desire to speak, or simply wait-out, at which point, people usually listen to the quiet group member. I think that using eye-contact as a variable in online group meetings is an interesting idea, but many other considerations must be met.
one study done on virtual teams that spent a long time interacting via the internet, and then brought together for a brief time period to interact spent most of their time just introducing themselves to each other.
apparently, interaction with each other is more than just talking to one another,(mail qualifies for that, or say video attachments on mails)
co(g)ito, ergo sum : I get screwed at school, so i must be alive.
I wonder about how cultural differences in eye contact would affect this kind of study. I can't imagine that in many parts of Asia, where eye contact is rude in many contexts, that the results would be the same.
Mr. Kruschev did not take off his shoe and bang it angrily on the table.
Oh, he banged a shoe angrily on the table all right, but *he didn't take it off.*
If you examine film footage of the event very carefully you'll notice one very interesting fact, Senor Kruschev is *wearing both his shoes.*
Messr. Kruschev was not just some angry ape given to bizarre fits of pique. One did not survive under the Stalinist purges to rise to party leadership by not being a very clever, perceptive and *manipulative* man.
The Honorable Kruschev actually *brought a shoe to the meeting hall with him* with the express intent of banging it on the table! The whole thing was cleverly staged.
KFG
Eye contact is highly cultural: direct eye contact has different meanings to different people. In Europe and America it signifies attentiveness and interest, but elsewhere it can mean aggression and disrespect --
This kind of research is important in developing better computer interface, and human communication tools, but these tools need to adapt to many styles and codes of communication, as well.
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
Hehehehe. This reminds me of a little experiment done to our social psych professor. It demonstrates the power of attention, but also shaping (gradual conditioning) in a rather insidious form.
The class had been studying shaping -- where you don't condition for an end behaviour but for an intermediate, easier one. Then when you have that, you shape to the next behaviour in a chain, repeating as necessary. That way, you can condition complicated behaviours that would occur too infrequently by chance to reward the pattern.
The idea was to pay our prof more or less attention the more or less he did a specific behaviour, and we chose teaching from one side of the stage rather than the other (in this case, reinforcing stage left, our right). Was probably good that only about 20 people were in on it, otherwise it might have been too obvious. But when he'd wander to our left, we'd stare at our books, scratch our heads, frown, slouch, and never make eye contact. If he moved to our right, we'd sit up a little straighter, look at him, and basically show we were paying attention. Well, if you ever have a glance around a sizable class, you know there are seldom many people giving their complete attention anyway, unless the prof is riveting. It only took a few classes to have him spending most of his time to the right of the lectern. We kept this up for nearly a month, at which point he basically taught the class from a window sill on the right edge of the room. Most impressivly, he didn't know what was going on. Most likely he just felt "most comfortable" there. Hehehehehehe.
People love to slag psychology but everyone acknowledges the importance of things like "eye contact." It's time we started giving these things some credit. Like the previous poster noting the power a "team of salespeople" could have, this can be powerful stuff.