One of the gang: supporting in-group behavior for embodied mediated communication

  • Authors:

  • Irene Rae;Leila Takayama;Bilge Mutlu

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA;Willow Garage, Menlo Park, California, United States;University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

As an emerging technology that enables geographically distributed work teams, mobile remote presence (MRP) systems present new opportunities for supporting effective team building and collaboration. MRP systems are physically embodied mobile videoconferencing systems that remote co-workers control. These systems allow remote users, pilots, to actively initiate conversations and to navigate throughout the local environment. To investigate ways of encouraging team-like behavior among local and remote co-workers, we conducted a 2 (visual framing: decoration vs. no decoration) x 2 (verbal framing: interdependent vs. independent performance scoring) between-participants study (n=40). We hypothesized that verbally framing the situation as interdependent and visually framing the MRP system to create a sense of self-extension would enhance group cohesion between the local and the pilot. We found that the interdependent framing was successful in producing more in-group oriented behaviors and, contrary to our predictions, visual framing of the MRP system weakened team cohesion.