Technology and Effective Communication

“Micro” Social Theory Much work occurs in groups or teams of 2+ people –E.g., lab groups, project teams, classes Teamwork varies along a number of dimensions, e.g.: –Synchronous/asynchronous –Timing (fast/slow) –Nature of artifacts being manipulated (documents, objects, etc.) –Interdependence of roles Assumption: designing technology to support remote group interaction requires knowing how face-to-face teams coordinate their language and actions to achieve their goals

Coordination Mechanisms In face-to-face settings, team members use a variety of coordination mechanisms: –Conversation –Nonverbal cues (e.g., facial expressions, gaze) –Gestures/pointing –Observation of partners’ actions and task status Technologies for remote collaboration are unlikely to be able to implement all of these coordination mechanisms Need: a theory of group interaction that will allow us to predict what features of face-to-face interaction should be implemented in tools for remote collaboration and how those features should be implemented –Predictions must be specific to the types of tasks work teams are performing

Clark’s Theory of Common Ground Interpersonal communication is more efficient when people share more common ground Common ground = mutual knowledge, beliefs, goals, attitudes that people know that they share Grounding = The interactive process in a conversation by which communicators exchange evidence about what they do or do not understand. –Presentation phase: Speaker presents utterance to addressee –Acceptance phase: Addressee accepts utterance by providing evidence of understanding People ground utterances to the extent necessary “for current purposes” Principle of least collaborative effort – the pair should do the minimum necessary for successful grounding

Example of grounding Grounding in a Bicycle Repair Task h,Pick up the seat please. w,Okay. w,Got the seat. h,And have it upside down like you couldn't sit on it- trust me. w,I can't sit on it. h,Okay. h,Now- uh- closer to your right hand there are these things called rails. w,Got em.

Unpacking Mutual Knowledge/Common Ground Communication rests on mutual knowledge or common ground: –The knowledge the parties to a communication hold in common and know they have in common Speakers are hypothesis testers. –“ If I say ‘ X ’, will listener understand ‘ X ’ ? ” –“ If I say ‘ Did you see the game? ’ will listener understand ‘ Did you see the Pirates/Cub’s wildcard play-off game last night? ’” Speaker does hypothesis testing at two points: –Presentation phase — “ What should I say? ” –Acceptance phase — “ Did the listener understand what I meant or should I elaborate? ”

Name these objects A B 100%: Circle 70%: Star 30%: Adjective Star

Name these objects A BC 80%: Circle 20%: White Circle 60%: Star 40%: Adjective Star 0%: Star 100%: Adjective Star Speakers take into account what they expect their partners to know –Name objects to distinguish among similar objects which a listener (a) has in mind and (b) is likely to confuse

But speakers can fail to anticipate what their partner will understand Subjects compose sentence-long statement about two topic –Sarcastic vs sincere – vs voice Replication – vs voice vs in-person –Convey phrase with an emotion (sarcasm, seriousness, anger, sadness) –Partner was stranger vs friend Friendship made no difference Kruger, J., Epley, N., Parker, J., & Ng, Z.-W. (2005). Egocentrism over e- mail: Can we communicate as well as we think? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(6),

Referential communication task Referring to things is basic to communication Stylized game to understand reference: One person (the director) tells another (the worker) in what order to place these Tangram figures

Demo of a Referential Communication Task Form 3 person teams: director, worker, observer Director tells workers how to arrange figures Workers arranges the figures Observer observes & records: –How fast & accurately the director/worker team performed. –How the pair coordinated naming conventions. –How director knew if the worker understood a direction. –What they did to get better over time.

Observer record sheet TrialCorrect?Time to complete (Min:Sec) Notes: How did director know that the worker understood a direction? 1Y N ____:____ 2Y N ____:____ 3Y N ____:____ 4Y N ____:____

Communicators come to agree on a pair-specific description of objects With a new partner, words per object returns to close to original level Partners are learning

What evidence do people use for grounding? Personal knowledge Group membership Linguistic co-presence Explicit feedback Physical co-presence

Personal Knowledge Encoders describe colors or figures for self or for other. Study 1: Other is “ another student ” Decoders get own descriptions (self) descriptions for another (social), or someone else ’ s self-description (non-social) Study 2: Other is friend in experiment or “ another student ” DV=% Accurate

Stimuli for Expert vs. Novice Study

Task: Order postcards of NYC landmarks Experts: New Yorkers Novices: Mid-westerns & others Experts talking to experts are more efficient than novices talking to novices Work with resources at hand Mixed pairs learn from each other Novices learn to use names Experts learn to use descriptions But adjustments are incomplete Partners can partially accommodate to differences in others knowledge

Role of technology

Applying Grounding Theory To Technology Clark & Brennan (1991): “People should ground with those techniques available in a medium that lead to the least collaborative effort.” Hypothesis: Objective characteristics of different communication media change the costs of conversational grounding and strategies people use. Some key types of costs: –Production/Reception costs: costs of producing/receiving messages –Start-up costs: costs of initiating conversation –Asynchrony costs: costs of timing utterances –Speaker change costs: costs of turn-taking –Repair costs: costs of correcting misunderstandings Should allow us to predict in advance what features new technologies should have to meet different collaborative purposes

Affordances of Communication Media (Clark & Brennan, 1991) Co-Presence Participants share physical environment, including a view of what each other is doing and looking at Visibility Participants can see one another but not what each is doing or looking at AudibilityParticipants can hear one another Cotemporality Messages are received close to the time that they are produced, permitting fine-grained interactivity Simultaneity Multiple participants can send/receive messages at the same time, allowing backchannel communication Sequentiality Participants take turns in an orderly fashion in a single conversation ReviewabilityMessages do not fade over time RevisabilityMessages can be revised before being sent

Exactly how conversationalist achieve common ground depends up the details of the technology available formulation production reception understanding start-up delay asynchrony speaker change display fault repair co-presence visibility audibility co-temporality (no lag) simultaneity (full duplex) sequentiality reviewability revisability Features of communication setting Needs for & costs of Change Technology changes strategies and costs of grounding

Affordances of Conventional Media Affordance Face-to- Face Video Conf. Phone Copresence ++ ? -- Visibility Audibility Cotemporality Simultaneity Sequentiality Reviewability Revisability -- ++

Direction giving exercise Volunteer to describe a simple figure to the class, with and without feedback AB

Feedback and interactivity is one effective way of achieving common ground Feedback tailors communication to an audience, making it more effective Message Response/ Backchannel Sender Receiver encoding decoding encoding Interactivity improves communication

Need feedback to learn from each other Some technology can disrupt the feedback Half-duplex (speakerphone) vs full-duplex audio (telephone) Even msecs reduces coordination Video that desynchronizes audio & video channels disrupts lip-reading Effects of technology on partner- specific learning

Feedback & active listening are skilled behavior: You can learn to do it better Five behaviors for active listening

Yee et al Meta-Analysis Comparison of 25 experiments –People interact via text or voice –Presence of avatar None Unrealistic (cartoon) Photorealistic –Outcomes Performance Subjective evaluations of experience or partner Performance & subjective evaluations improved with avatar Realism only influence subjective evaluations

Apple Facetime